Frostbite
by writer168
Summary: Peter wasn't going to let May pay the rent all on her own. Not when there was two of them, not when being Spider-Man made everything that much harder. And if that meant washing scratched up dishes and scrubbing old blood from the tile grout at Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls, then so be it. But then one night, his skin turned blue. [MCU-verse]
1. Ferret

"_The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone._"

_Beep._

"Hi, Happy! It's, uh. It's Peter. Peter Parker. Um, sorry I called so late—uh, I'm just giving my report of the day? I helped an old lady cross the street and she got me a hot dog, which was super nice of her, and I stopped a couple carjackings and helped a kid find his way home!"

Peter glanced at his wrist. The web-shooters wrapped around like a simple black cuff and could be passed off as a bracelet if anyone asked, and he definitely felt safer with them always on instead of having to just rely on Mr. Stark's version of his suit whenever he was in trouble. The systems were awesome and Karen was always nice to talk to, but… it still wasn't his own work. Not that he had the money or materials to make his design his own, but the cuffs were products of a systematic dumpster diving behind a few electronic stores over the span of a few weeks.

Beneath his left cuff was a battered watch.

It read 11:13 pm.

He sighed quietly, sure to hold the phone away as he did so, then brought it back to his face and mustered as much enthusiasm as he could standing in the dark alleyway. His breath curled in a thick white mist in front of his face. The sleeves of his baggy blue hoodie were pushed to his elbows and the white apron around his waist was stained all sorts of red and brown and _red_.

He didn't shiver.

Cigarette smoke filled his nose from the puffs of the passersby, and on the first few days on the job it was almost as unbearable as the blood.

Nowadays...

"A-Anyway, just wanted to let you know I'm up for anything, really! If you ever need me, I'm there! Um, so, have a good night! Sorry again for calling so late!"

Peter tapped the red icon on his phone before shoving it into his back pocket and tried not to be too disappointed. After Germany, after the Vulture, after _Coney Island_, the radio silence had only settled. He still left voicemails every time Spider-Man went out regardless if Happy actually listened to them or not, but he knew it was probably the latter. That if anything, his ramblings were stacking up in the 'unread' box until it was time to clean them all out for more storage.

He really wanted to stop leaving voicemails. But if he did, wouldn't Happy think something was up? Then he'd tell Mr. Stark and maybe they'd find out about his new job and—

Peter sighed and rubbed his eyes with the bottom of his palms.

Right. As if Mr. Stark and Happy cared enough to check up on him. They had better things to worry about than some fifteen year old vigilante, didn't they?

He looked back down at his watch. 11:18 pm.

Brown work boots clunked on the snow-melted pavement towards the back door he propped open with an empty beer bottle—seriously, he had to talk to Mr. Weasel about investing in some stoppers or something—and slipped back into the kitchen where the old woman at the stove was making some of the greasiest wings Peter had ever seen. And he saw a seagull in an oil spill once.

"I'm back from my break!"

"Oh good, take these out to the leather jackets out there, wouldya', dear?" Granny Sal gestured to some plates on her left. She'd never said how old she was but Peter was sure she had to be pushing eighty. He didn't know how she could keep up in a place like this, but the last time someone got thrown into the kitchen when a fight started up and she'd broken a ladle on the side of his head to knock him out cold, he was reassured enough that she was probably in here for a reason. "We've got a real riot tonight. A whole group came back alive and they're splittin' the betting money."

"Gotcha, Ms. Sal."

"Sweetie, please. Call me Granny."

"Sure thing, Ms. Granny."

She chuckled and swiped the back of his head. He grinned and sidestepped away.

Peter balanced six plates on his arms and used his back to push through the door that separated the kitchen from the back of the bar. The moment he stepped out onto the floor, he was dodging almost drunk mercenaries and old, mismatched chairs until he made it to the tables pushed up at the far end.

Low hanging lights illuminated the otherwise dim and dingy building and the clacks of pool balls bounced off the brick walls. It definitely wasn't Delmar's, but there was a certain charm to the place. If someone was charmed by the scent of sweat and spilled beer.

"ey, Ferret!"

It was Ferret here. Not Peter. _No real names unless you can cover your own ass,_ Mr. Weasel told him before he started his first night. And, well, it was better than anything else he could come up with himself. Besides, it wasn't like he would just walk into a bar like this with the words "It's Me, The Spider-man, Nice to Meet You" on his forehead.

"Christ kid, you still workin' 'ere?"

"Heh, thought you'd get run out after Jet fell on ya' couple weeks back."

"Hey guys," Peter greeted as he set down some hot wings, jalapeno poppers, and some other things caked in oil and breading. But the nachos, though. The nachos looked _good_. "And of course I'm still working here. The pay's good and you guys haven't tried to kill me yet so I mean, win-win? You get Ms. Granny's bar food and Mr. Weasel gets a guy to use the ladder to change the Dead Pool 'cause he's scared to do it himself."

A round of laughter echoed as Weasel yelled from behind the bar. "The ladder's a fucking _hazard_!"

"Then get a new one!"

"Who the fuck am I, Bill Gates? Between paying for not-broken chairs and cleaning up after your asses every night, I'm gonna need a whole lotta moo-lah and ladders aren't in the budget!"

"So I'm guessing that's a no on getting door stoppers?"

"Fuck outta here, Ferret. Actually, get your ass over here and change this goddamn board."

Peter sighed dramatically and turned back to the leather jackets gulping down their pints at the table. "Duty calls, gentlemen. Enjoy your cheesy, bready, wingy food."

He dodged even more mercs on his way back to the kitchen and came back out with the step-ladder his boss refused to even look at and set it up by the bar stools. As he climbed up and wobbled with a rag and a broken piece of chalk, Weasel leaned over the bar and glanced up.

A curtain of dirty blonde hair fell against the thick black frames of his glasses as he regarded the teen, humming and writing in the bets of the week. The kid was too cheery, too bright-eyed to even be within a mile of this place.

"Seriously though, the guys' got a point. You've been working here what, three months now? You're young, obviously, with that ridiculous fucking baby-face you've got goin' on and I'm sure some hipster coffee shop would love to put you in uniform and make you brew some venti mocha choco coconut crunch no whip the fuck," he said as he wiped down one of his glasses. "Still don't know how you found the job opening but for real, I'll give you an out."

Chalk dust spread over Peter's calluses as he bit his lip at Weasel's offer. He knew this job wasn't for everyone; it crossed the line of legality time and time again, and more often than not he saw body bags lugged out the back or bundles of thousands get passed beneath tables. His enhanced hearing let him know that aboutfive jobs will be worked during this shift, that Elijah who always ordered four pints got shot last week, that Dylan he first met three nights ago turned up dead with a bullet in his head and his assignment still loose on the streets.

If Spider-Man saw another fifteen year old kid in this very position, scrawling in names on a blackboard in the middle of Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls, the _Hellhouse_, he'd try to get that kid out of there as fast as he could.

But being a hipster barista didn't pay the bills.

Being _Spider-Man_ didn't pay the bills.

"Thanks, Mr. Weasel, but I'm good," Peter shrugged. He practically slid down the ladder and gave his boss half a heart attack as he folded up the steel beast and hoisted it just enough above the ground to carry back. "Besides, you're the boss. I mean, uh, unless you want to fire me..."

Weasel eyed him for a long moment before he sighed and waved an unbothered hand. "You're quick on your feet and good with the crowd. Would be a pain in the ass to find a replacement the fuckers here don't wanna shoot."

Peter hid his smile as he ducked back into the kitchen and propped the ladder near the back door.

He heard the front door swing open at the end of the bar, followed by the arrival of Hellhouse's most notorious visitor.

"I'm back Wease! _And I brought two day old tacos with me!_"

Good ol' Wade.

"Don't wave that near me." And Ms. Domino, too. "I'd rather not have diarrhea just by association."

The rest of the night had him half on dish duty and half on serving duty and he was lucky the bar was filled with more of the usuals instead of the mercs from out of town who see him for the first time and think he's just another scrawny kid to push around. Now, he didn't want to blow his own bubble, but he may or may not have been the one who made a person-sized dent in the west wall a month back when someone got a little too in his face, but Weasel got a kick out of it and it put him in a lot of the patrons' good books, so, y'know. If it works.

And god, the tips?

Peter thumbed through the wad of cash he'd gotten for the night before he stuffed it in his jeans pocket and slung on his fraying winter jacket before he left for the night. Morning? Morning.

Mercs were probably the best tippers he'd ever met.

He wrapped his scarf tighter around his face and tugged his hood over his head as he walked the quickest route back to his apartment. Normally he'd swing back and get home without making May worry too much, but ever since he'd taken on the job he was afraid he'd fall asleep in the middle of shooting a web and take a nasty plummet into a cab or the side of a building.

So walking it was. At three in the morning. In New York. In December.

Which was absolutely fine. Totally. It wasn't like he was cold or anything—

Peter stepped on a piece of iced concrete and slipped.

"What the—!"

He jerked his wrist and shot a string of web on the nearest street light and yanked, pulling himself onto the curve above the bulb. His hands gripped the freezing metal as he stared at the spot that almost cracked his head. What the heck was that, spidey sense?! That was danger! Right there!

"Aw, man. You're not out of whack 'cause I'm tired, are you?" he groaned quietly. He let go of the metal to rub his eyes with his knuckles, but quickly pulled it back. And stared.

He jumped down from the lamp post and scurried into the light. He threw off his jacket and shoved up the sleeves of his hoodie, his breaths coming out in shallow huffs that he can see so clearly through his clouding panic.

Peter Benjamin Parker stood in the middle of a lonely New York street and could only watch as the skin of his hands and arms crept into a frosty _blue_.


	2. Thwip Thwip

Peter shook one leg restlessly under the lunch table as he stared down at his untouched food. His eyes kept trailing to his hands on either side of the tray, now his normal skin color and he had to think, was he just really, really tired last night?

_The blue creeps like a river. It isn't all at once, it doesn't swell. It starts from the tips of his fingers and tendrils up his palms past his wrists following the veins raising hard lines in a mirrored pattern across knuckles and forearms._

_Peter squeezes his eyes shut. Opens them. Fuzzes, re-focuses. Still there._

_He looks up at the frozen metal street lamp. Just regular metal. Just iced over._

_His eyes drag back to his watch. _

_3:13 am._

_School starts in a few hours._

"Peter? You okay?"

He blinked and Ned's face materialized right in front of him, a crease between his brows and his own food half-eaten. He must've looked like a complete lunatic in the same hoodie he worked in the night before with the bags he knew were under his eyes from all the hours he hadn't slept, sitting on his bed and staring at his hands until the color receded the same way they came, slowly, flowing back down to fingertips before the last wisps of blue faded into nothing.

"I got back kinda late from my shift at the House," he said, because that's what he'll call it if anyone ever asked where he worked. Ned only knew the 'House' was less than ideal, but it was more than May who thought he'd gotten a job at some hole-in-the-wall pub that Granny was sweet enough to fake a call for. "Sorry, uh, what were you saying?"

"I asked if you wanted to play some Resident Evil after decathlon practice." Ned's concerned gaze lingered for a few moments before he picked up a tangerine to peel. "But you should catch up on sleep, dude. Get a few hours in after, you know..." He trailed off, making some weird hand motions like he's at a rave but doesn't know what to do with his arms. "Thwip thwip."

Peter snorted and kicked his shin under the table. "I don't look like that!"

"Ow! And yeah, you do! Look, I've got about a few dozen YouTube videos to prove it."

Peter was in the middle of shoving some cold pizza into his mouth as Ned scrolled through YouTube to prove his point when his own phone vibrated.

**boss-man:** i no u dont have a shift tonite _[11:43am]_

**boss-man:** but can u com in _[11:43am]_

**boss-man:** got new stock i need ur brain_ [11:43am]_

**boss-man:** silverwear, peenuts, menus _[11:44am]_

**boss-man:** the ushe _[11:44am]_

Peter's thumb tapped against the side of his phone.

Silverware, peanuts, menus.

_Weapons, ammunition, new merc job postings._

Within the first few days of the job, Weasel hadn't sugarcoated any part of what it meant to work in Sister Margaret's and made sure he knew exactly what it meant to be a server/dish boy for them.

_An hour before the bar opens, Weasel holds up three fingers. Peter stares as the man drops one. "Arms dealing." The second finger comes down. "Information broking." The third. "Dirty job dispatches."_

_Then an index finger points directly at Peter's face._

_"If you can't handle the fact that this is what we do, I will literally escort you back to whichever Chuck E. Cheese you wandered from and we can forget this whole thing ever happened."_

_Peter truly considers what that means. 1) Super illegal. 2) That info probably wasn't like, exam answers, so super illegal. 3) So Illegal that the 'I' needed to be capitalized._

_All three of those were things Spider-Man would immediately take a dive for, webbing up anyone associated without asking questions and leaving a note for the NYPD. Because this was all wrong, wasn't it? Bottom line, no ifs, ands, or buts._

_And if anything, this was also something completely out of Spider-Man's element. He handled robbers and muggers, the odd cat stuck in a tree, and the last time he jumped into the deep-end he'd wrestled a criminal with metal wings, crashed an aircraft, and set an entire beach on _fire_._

_"Your job listing was a night shift with no work experience necessary. No background checks, paid in cash." Peter presses his lips together and never breaks eye contact. His palms start to sweat. "I'm not an idiot. I know what I'm getting into—I managed to find the ad for this place, didn't I?"_

_Which had been dredged up by a job searching program he coded to search for something, anything that was willing to hire a literal fifteen year old who only had 'extra-curricular activities' filled out in his resume and paid enough for him to help May out._

_"Yeah, you did, didn't you?" Weasel frowns. He's quiet for another beat before he turns and groans, muttering something that sounded like 'I'm gonna get so much shit for this'. "Fine. FINE. You get a two week trial period and if I think you can't handle it, your Kidz Bop lookin' ass is gone."_

_"And if I can handle it?"_

_"Then you stay. Easy."_

_..._

_"God, you're like the poster child that dermatologists hate except they went overboard on the photoshop and made you look like a nine year old. Are you even old enough to drink?"_

_"Uh, um, technically I'm not old enough to vote?"_

_"Jesus fucking _Christ_."_

**boss-man: **oh my god ur in clas rnt u _[11:45am]_

**boss-man: **fuck uh _[11:45am]_

**boss-man: **pay atension _[11:45am]_

**boss-man:** or sumthing _[11:45am]_

**Me:** i'm at lunch rn so _[11:46am]_

**Me:** i can come in tho _[11:46am]_

**Me:** what time do u need me in? _[11:47am]_

**boss-man:** halefuckingluyah _[11:47am]_

**boss-man:** wats ur earliest avail _[11:47am]_

**Me:** 4:30ish _[11:48am]_

**boss-man:** done _[11:48am]_

**boss-man:** ull get ovrtiem _[11:48am]_

Overtime pay meant as much as a three hundred in hand, same day.

"Sorry, Ned. Can't catch up on sleep tonight," he said. Ned paused the video and looked up. "Boss needs me in right after decathlon for inventory stuff. He probably won't need me for the usual shift but he'll pay me overtime so—"

"You... sure that's a good idea? You look really, really tired and your boss probably has other people he can call in, right?"

For stuff like that? Yeah, maybe he'd call in Wade or Domino or one of the higher classed mercs, but one time when the bar computer system went down for the night and Peter subbed himself in as a replacement calculator/tab keeper/bill maker that worked just as effectively, Weasel started pulling him further into Sister Margaret's business. With a pay raise. Which was nice.

Peter shrugged and dipped his too-hard pizza crust into a ranch cup and munched, trying not to feel guiltily at the unabashed worry in his friend's face. "He knows I'm good at math and sometimes he has me look over payments and stuff," he replied, and this time it wasn't a lie. Sometimes he kept track of who ordered which weapon, how much they owed, when they needed it by, and to make sure the Gold Card system kept its flow. "I'm good, man. Really."

He was pretty sure Ned didn't believe him.

::

Around 4:40 pm he made it to Sister Margaret's graffitied front door. At the same time, he got a text.

**boss-man:** Don't come in until I say so. _[4:40pm]_

Capitalization, punctuation, no misspelled words, the warning—

And his spidey sense screamed.

Peter was around the building and at the back door before he finished sliding his phone back into his pocket. He flicked both wrists and a pressure pad from each web-shooter flipped onto his palms and quickly, quietly scaled up the wall and up to the window to Weasel's apartment just above the bar.

The latch was quick to snap under his strength and he opened it just enough to slither through and got down on his hands and toes, silently letting the window fall closed with his foot as the buffer.

The conversation downstairs immediately sharpened into clarity.

"You must be new in town 'cause you're being a huge dick right now—"

"Shut the _fuck _up," a whole new voice snarled. Peter crawled along the kitchen ceiling and landed in the living room. Mugs and used paper plates litter the coffee table and he was careful not to step on any of the papers and books strewn across the ground as he sets his winter jacket and backpack on the couch. "I don't care if you're one of the top brokers out there, I'm not about to get cheaped out by some stoner-lookin' college dropout!"

"... Okay first of all, I have feelings. Second, I didn't drop out of—"

"Shut. UP!"

The stairs that lead down to the bar were metal and clunky, definitely not great for sneaking around. He stuck to the walls and ceiling and for once was grateful that sunlight didn't get the chance to stream into the Hellhouse. He took his scarf out of his hoodie pocket and tied it around his lower face and tugged his hood over his head and knotted the strings under his chin to keep it from falling.

The man holding a handgun to Weasel's forehead didn't notice the shadow that crept above him, hidden from the dim lighting and hovering just overhead. Neither do the other two standing near the pool tables.

"I'll give you 'til the count of three to agree to my terms or you'll get some scrap in your brain," the stranger growled. Weasel swallowed. "One." The safety was off. "_Two_."

"Why's it always to three?"

The stranger looked up just as the shadow dropped down. Legs hooked around his neck and threw him onto the floor, the gun sliding underneath one of the chairs. Just as the other two whipped out their own guns, webs stuck to the barrel and yanked them into Peter's waiting hands. He clicked the magazine releases, let the magazines fall, and tossed the empty guns behind him and over the bar.

"No, really, is it 'cause three's a good number? Ten's too long? Oh, maybe it's like Goldilocks and the Three Acceptable Numbers for Intimidating Countdowns."

He leaned back and grabbed Cronie #1's leg mid-kick, webbed the incoming fist to their chest, and spun to slam them through a nearby table. Cronie #2 tried to land a punch. Another. Another. But it was blocked. Duck. Dodge. And then Peter caught their face with a web followed by an elbow to the nose. #2 fell and his hands and ankles get bound.

"Personally I think five's a pretty good number. It's got that appeal of being even when it's not—"

His spidey sense spiked.

_BANG._

He moved. A bullet grazed his bicep.

Fingers curled around the leg of the stool that got chucked across the room. It shattered against the man's chest and he slumped back against the wall, blood dribbling down his chin. Peter webs that gun into his hand too. Just in case.

"Um." Peter slowly turned to Weasel, who had both hands on his head and his jaw on the floor from his position half-crouched behind the bar. His wide-eyed stare didn't stray from the only person left standing in the room. "I-I'll pay for the stool."

Peter glanced at the wall.

"And. Uh. I'll clean up the blood?"

The rest of the table Cronie #1 crashed through collapsed into a heap of splintered wood, and Peter was acutely aware that his hoodie still had chalk dust on the sleeves and the scarf around his face was the one with the lopsided snowman, one that Weasel joked about every time he saw it.

So. Well.

"... Please don't fire me."

::

"I'm just—let's rewind the tape for a minute. Retrace our steps. Starting with that text I sent you that said something like, I dunno, _Don't Come In Until I Say So_."

Peter sat on an unbroken bar stool with his head cowed and his hands balled in his lap. His scarf was tucked back in his pockets and his hood was pulled back to expose his pink cheeks and pinched lips in all their glory as his boss paces and does some weird breathing exercises.

"That guy over there? Kairo Green. New blood on the Gold Card, came in from out west, and probably from what you've seen _total _douche-nozzle. Scary as fuck too. I literally almost shit myself when he took out his gun and started goin' off about 'product quality' when it's his fault he made the order. But—But I'm getting off track. The second I saw Green walk up in here like he owned the damn building I think, 'I should text Ferret not to come in so he doesn't get his face blown off', 'cause I'm nice like that." Weasel breathed out. Breathed in. Screamed with his mouth closed.

"Then you fucking dropped from the ceiling like a fucking horror movie monster and then proceeded to kick the collective asses of everyone in this room. As Spider-Man."

"M-Mr. Weasel—"

"As _SPIDER-MAN._"

Peter's mouth clamped shut and he hunched his shoulders to his ears. It wasn't like he was happy about his secret identity getting exposed either because, well, _secret_, but no one's life was worth the anonymity. Especially not Weasel, who always treated him well and never saw him as just one more stupid kid.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Weasel," he murmured. "I didn't think you'd get this mad about it."

"Mad?" Weasel repeated. He groaned and rubbed his hands all over his face. "I'm not—Kid, you scared the shit out of me. Almost literally. Do you know how close I was to actually laying a fat one in my pants? So close. That Conjuring shit made me age twenty years and had my balls shrivel up like prunes." He drew in another deep breath, ignoring the disgusted scrunch of Peter's face. "All I'm saying is give a guy a warning next time, okay? Shit."

The teen straightened up. "So you're not... mad?"

"Why the hell would I be mad? You saved my life, thanks by the way, and promised to pay for all the shit you broke."

"Uh, normally the Spider-Man thing doesn't really fly with people the first time they find out. Since I'm only fifteen and all," Peter admitted. Weasel's face fell back into his hands, a strangled _'fifteen? Oh my god,'_ falling from his lips. "Um. Last time someone found out, they ranted for like thirty minutes about how dangerous this shit was and that I wasn't allowed to go out on patrol anymore." Then, May had almost stormed Stark Industries as a one-woman army to lay into Tony Stark himself for taking him all the way out to Germany to fight the Rogue Avengers at fourteen. "So I kinda expected... more yelling? A lecture on how I'm too young? That this is a huge responsibility that I'm not experienced enough to understand? That I'm supposed to be better?"

By the last hypothetical he tasted his own bitterness on his tongue and quickly dipped his lips again, cheeks flaming red and eyes falling towards the un-mopped floor.

Okay fine, so what if he was still upset about the speeches he'd gotten from Mr. Stark and May, and yeah, he knew they meant well and he knew he had so much more to learn, but what else was he supposed to do with these powers? This opportunity? Let those robbers rob that cashier blind when he was passing just to get a gallon of milk? Let some muggers get away with a tourist's backpack when they thought no one was looking? Let a bunch of bullies beat up a kid in a parking lot just in the security cameras' blind spots? Let a gang run a shoot out with innocents in the streets and no one to stop them? Let some unarmed kid get shot by the police because he was the wrong race at the wrong time?

Peter just wanted to be good. _Do _good. For others who needed it.

Was that so wrong?

Weasel sighed and rubbed his face one more time before he clapped his hands on the teen's shoulders. "Look. Spider-Kid. Ferret. I'll be straight with you and say that it's kinda sorta fucked up that a fifteen year old is swinging around Queens," he started. Peter deflated. "But you know what else is sorta fucked up? Running a merc dispatch from an old Catholic boarding school and keeping the same name. Costs money to change shit like that." He took a step back and pushed up his glasses. "What I'm saying is—Jesus, I shouldn't be allowed to give talks like this, uh, your whole superhero vigilante thing? Pretty fucking cool. Just—Just fucking let a guy know when you're gonna rain down from the skies, fuck."

He walked back behind the bar to start picking up the shattered pieces of glass from when Green slammed the duffel bag full of firearms down when he wasn't happy with what he'd seen, leaving the pep-talk at that. It took a few seconds for Peter to digest that no, he wasn't in trouble, then scrambled up to help pick up the glass pieces too, careful not to cut his fingers on the edges.

He cleared his throat.

"Uh, Mr. Weasel, whenever I-I go out in the suit I try not to interfere with any of the Gold Card jobs," he piped up. The man's expression went dumbfounded and might very well be his second whiplash of the day—and it wasn't even Happy Hour. "Or the ones I know about, at least. I know everyone here's got a job to do and, well, I just look out for the little guy." All the glass Peter collected was tossed into the trash under the bar. "And, uh. I'm not a superhero," he shrugged. "I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

::

Weasel was used to the prime grime of society. The low-lifes, the morally questionable, Wade—anything the New York sewage system could spit out and dump into his bar. Some he welcomed and some he didn't because he could have standards sometimes, but for the most part? He didn't deal with good people and he was fine with that. He'd never had a crisis about it, he never really gave a shit. It was what it was.

But the first time he ever asked himself if what he was doing was too much was when some doe-eyed, Disney child star wannabe wandered into his bar asking about the job that had only been posted and hidden just enough so that normal job hunters wouldn't find it. He knew his way around computers and codes well enough to make sure it stayed that way, and the fact that this preschooler dug it up himself? Completely fucking ridiculous. Either the kid was insanely lucky or was desperate enough to hook himself up with the proper network to find it.

But Weasel took him on anyways for two reasons: pity, and the fact that he was sure the Gerber Baby lookalike wasn't going to make it a week. Two weeks, if he wanted to be optimistic.

Then after two weeks, Ferret was still there. Three Weeks. Four Weeks. Two months. Three. Ferret was a constant, joking with Granny Sal in the back, cracking jokes with some of the mercs on the floor, throwing assholes into walls, listening to Wade's stupid stories, always making sure Domino's chicken wings came out slightly charred just the way she liked them.

Weasel didn't want to like him. Didn't want to get attached. Didn't want to bring him down into the underbelly of knives and bullets and blood money.

Because—Because Ferret was such a _good _kid, you know? So bright and cheery even after learning that he served killers their bar snacks or helped inventory weapons of every and all variety. He was this smart brat that smiled and laughed even as he climbed the demon ladder to change the dead pool.

So he decided to give in, be selfish, keep the kid around. He liked him. He got attached. He brought him into the underbelly of knives and bullets and blood money anyway, and sometimes it was hard to see how quickly the kid picked things up and how good he was getting at being in this business.

And if the kid ended up getting shot or killed working the job? He'd take the blame and live with the crippling guilt the rest of his miserable life, no sweat.

Then, Ferret turned out to be fucking _Spider-Man._

Then, Spider-Man turned out to be fucking _**fifteen years old**_.

"Uh, Mr. Weasel, whenever I-I go out as Spider-man I try not to interfere with any of the Gold Card jobs," Ferret piped up, and Weasel just about lost his goddamn mind. "Or the ones I know about, at least. I know everyone here's got a job to do here and, well, I just look out for the little guy." This kid was honest-to-god so genuine it made his teeth rot. "And, uh. I'm not a superhero. I'm just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man."

Gold Cards: practically more equivalent to actual gold than the spray-painted metal they were made from. Client comes in, pays for one of the "Gold Cards", said Gold Card gets handed to the merc best-suited for the business, Gold Card gets turned back in once all loose ends are tied up.

Spider-Man should've stopped all those transactions, but Ferret chose not to.

Weasel wanted to stab himself. Repeatedly. With a spoon.

"Am... Am I fired?"

_God._

"No, Ferret." A long, long suffering sigh. "You're not fired."

If anything, this might deserve a pay raise.

After they finished cleaning up the rest of the glass and the duffel was safely stored beneath the floorboards under the trash can, they turned towards the bodies still strewn about the room.

"I didn't kill any of them," Ferret said, because of course he didn't. He walked up to one body and hoisted them over his shoulder and picked up another to tuck under his arm, which would've been a combined weight of at least three hundred pounds. Carried. Like. NOTHING. "So where do you want...?"

Weasel shook his disbelief from his head. "I'm banning them from the Hellhouse. Once word gets out about it, they'll probably get blacklisted from a shit ton of other brokers. I'll call a few people to get them outta our hands. For now though, you think you can, like, super tie them up with your webs and toss them in the back?"

"Oh, yeah! No biggie, Mr. Weasel!"

Ferret's head suddenly whipped towards the door so fast that Weasel swore his neck was in danger of snapping.

"Um. Wade's here."

"What? What do you mean Wade's—"

"You cocksucking dickwad!" Wade shouted as he kicked the front door open with the bottom of his heavy military boots. "The job you gave me was a damn bust! See, I get to the place, right? Cute little set-up where couples probably Lady and the Tramp some spaghetti you don't regretti before sucking face like a fucking Dyson..."

His tromping slowed to a stop beside Kairo Green's body. Wade, dressed in black jeans, a gray zip up, a beaten brown leather jacket, and his ever-present Deadpool mask, takes in the scene before his gaze lands on Weasel. Then Ferret. Then Weasel again. Then Ferret for the last time.

He gasped.

"Sweetheart! Darling!" he exclaimed. He rushed Ferret so fast that the two bodies thumped back onto the floor as he smushed the teen's face into his chest. "Wease! What the fuck did I say about exposing our sweet summer child to extensive violence? I knew I should've turned parental controls on."

"W-Wade—"

"Hush, young one. Mommy and Daddy are fighting as our impending divorce slowly rises on the horizon and we'll try to hide it from you as long as we can until we force your underdeveloped, impressionable mind to choose who you like the best so the favorite can have the upper-hand when vying for primary custody."

"It wasn't my fault," Weasel sputtered. "I was supposed to have an easy transaction lined up before Ferret came in to help with inventory—how was I supposed to know the fucker was gonna be a grade A dick?"

"We're _mercs_," Wade stressed. "We're all grade A dicks."

"Not all dicks try to kill me!"

"Only on good days."

"Gooch-face."

"Moose-knuckle."

"Guys!" Ferret squirmed out of his friend's hold and waved his hands to the bodies he just dropped and the other body still bleeding out against the wall. "Come on, we gotta bring them in the back because I don't know when they'll wake up and they still have to get tied up and stuff and—"

Wade blinked as he spotted black circles on Ferret's palms that lead from the black bracelets he always wore.

He took one of the kid's wrists mid-ramble, pushed down—

"Wade, _no_!"

—and webbed himself in the face.


	3. Flicker

Peter sighed as he dragged himself into the apartment at a quarter past eight. Weasel finding out about his other "part-time job" was already a lot, and adding Wade into the equation...

_No one says a thing for a long while._

_Which is troubling, because that meant _Wade _hasn't said a thing for a long while. He's just standing there with a web on his face, Peter's wrist in a loose grip, and the silence in Sister Margaret's slowly growing thicker and thicker._

_Then._

_"I thought the webs came out your butt."_

_All the tension flees out Peter's body as he pulls his arm back and braces himself on his knees._

_"... Yeah, I also thought the webs were butt-made," Weasel agrees apologetically._

_"Can—Can we just take care of these guys first? Please?" Peter pleads. He picks the two bodies back up as Wade struggles to scrape the synthetic web from his mask eyes. "I'll tie them up and put them in the back and, Mr. Weasel, can you make the call? Wade, don't pull so hard you're really going to hurt yourself—"_

Wade took it really well. He pulled a Ned and asked if he laid eggs or ate bugs for breakfast or if he secretly had six other arms that he was hiding and it'd be the wildest thing if he did, and Peter had been so relieved that Wade was someone he could trust that he readily agreed to the man's request to dangle him from the ceiling before the bar opened for the night.

Peter closed the front door behind and tossed his backpack on the couch as he made a beeline towards the kitchen. Wade might not have known how old he really was, but he couldn't hide how young he looked and yet, there was no judgment. Just like Weasel.

That alone warmed his chest like nothing else.

He dug around the fridge. It would just be a sandwich or six for dinner tonight, not that he was complaining, and after he made the first one he balanced his butter knife on the open mayonnaise jar and wandered back into the living room with one hand full of bread and the other slung in his hoodie pocket.

May wouldn't be back for another hour, maybe? And it was Tuesday so she'd get dinner with some of her co-workers, so she wouldn't be hungry when she got back. Not that he knew how to cook all that well, but Granny Sal sometimes wrangled him into being her sous chef when the bar was at its busiest, and he knew a thing or two about how to keep tortilla chips from getting _too _soggy.

He plopped down on the couch with a sigh and took a bite of his sandwich. The black of the TV screen stared back at him, as do all the pictures that line up on the shelves. Him, May, Ben, Dad, Mom... Their stares were heavy, frozen in moments that he'd half almost forgotten and half he tried to remember on the days his broken bones hurt a little more.

His gaze drifted back to his perfectly normal hands.

"What the heck did I do that night?" he mumbled.

He didn't imagine the blue. He _didn't_. He'd been dead-tired and it was three in the morning but he knew what he saw and he knew what he felt.

And in that moment, his hands didn't feel the winter cold.

Whatever happened to him wasn't an effect of the spider bite. Spiders were cold-blooded creatures that lessened their activity to dormancy when temperatures dropped. And for a while, that was true for him too. Since the bite he'd taken to wearing layers upon layers in the colder months, making sure to never stay outside for too long unless he passed out and went into hibernation in the middle of the street.

Peter narrowed his eyes.

Maybe it was... sometime after the Vulture incident that things started to change? From the instance atop the ferris wheel in his old jumpsuit covered in cuts and scars and burns, the cold hadn't bothered him as much. Did it? The three layers he usually wore in the apartment in the freezing, heater-less months started to get too warm for him and the five layers he squeezed himself into whenever he went into the snow were scaled down to two, or three if he counted the short sleeves under his hoodies.

He bit his lip and stood, cramming the last bit of crusts into his mouth before he tucked his fingers under his arms and began to pace alongside the coffee table.

Why didn't he think anything was weird back then? Was he really that caught up in Spider-Man and school and his job that he didn't notice that something had gone so wrong that he wasn't even feeling cold anymore. And that was the trigger of whatever this was, wasn't it? The cold. Not air conditioning cold or even New York December cold, but extreme cold? That he needed physical contact with?

No, that didn't make any sense. If extreme cold affected him now, why wouldn't it have affected him before? Was there some chemical he inhaled during his fight on Coney Island? If it was airborne it would've spread to the city and if it was something else in the sand or the flames, it would've spread to Happy and the other personnel that swarmed the crash site.

Peter's gaze cut back to the frames. He walked up to one; a photo of a smiling Richard and Mary in their lab coats as they carried a baby him in their arms.

Was there an external influence that affected him because he was enhanced? Maybe. But there was a chance that something else within the same time frame affected him.

He wiped some dust off the frame glass.

... Could it be genetic? Triggered by stressors? Wade once told him that people with the mutant gene could be forced to express it through extreme mental and physical experiences, but—

"Peter? Baby? You're back early."

His head jerked up. May shrugged off her coat by the doorway, her kind eyes concerned as she took in his slouched shoulders and mussed hair. Peter quickly snatched his hand back and brushed his crumb-covered fingers on his jeans.

"Hey, May. My boss texted me earlier and said he needed me to come to help with some inventory stuff before they opened. And he made sure to pay me overtime, so."

The three hundred dollar wad in his pants weighed heavy. He'd have to find a way to sneak it into his aunt's savings later.

"Your boss, Mr. Westley, right?"

"Yup."

Nope.

"Oh, it's nice that you decided to go in. Look at you, being all responsible and stuff," she joked. She stepped into the kitchen to make herself some of her nightly black tea. "I thought you'd be out late, you know." She spun around and did the same arm wiggles Ned did earlier. "Thwip thwip."

"Ugh, you too?"

"What? I did a perfect imitation," she smiled. It tapered off when Peter turned towards the counter to make another sandwich. His movements were quick and smooth, not that he'd ever been a clumsy child, but, "Sweetie?" She dunked her tea bag in her purple mug before running a hand through his hair. "Is something up?"

He smeared a line of mayo on his bread. "No, but, uh. Just kinda scatterbrained."

"Penny for your thoughts?"

"It's... I was just thinking about some genetics stuff before you got back. I read a paper a couple days ago about comparing differences in kids who are raised by biological parents and adoptive parents," he said. He hated how the lies flow easier on his tongue nowadays. How he has to keep lying to May even after he promised her no more secrets. "It was a pretty interesting study."

Her hand paused as she reached for the honey before she cleared her throat and grabbed the bottle. "Yeah? What kind of study did they do?"

"For the first one they looked into two different groups: children raised by their biological parents and children raised by their adoptive ones," Peter fibbed. _Come on, Parker. If you can bullshit your English papers, you can bullshit this study_. "They checked factors like income, history of mental illness, environment, things like that to keep the subjects as neutral to each other as possible. Then they followed the families throughout their lives and documented milestones in emotional development like death in the family and physical developments like diseases. Just stuff like that." _You're losing it. Think of something out of the box. Something interesting!_ "Um, if they e-ever do another study, I was thinking of other ways they could change it up. W-What if they look more into how adoptive parents deal with genetic disorders or predisposed conditions from their biological families?" _Dial it back! Getting too real!_ "Maybe look at how well different families in different situations react to stuff like that. Would you think that'd be a cool experiment, May?"

He glanced up, expecting another question about the paper or another question about if that's really what he was thinking about, but his aunt had this unfocused expression about her; that she looked at him like he was so, so far away.

His stomach sunk. "... May?"

She blinked rapidly and set her hand on his cheek. "Sorry, you reminded me of something and I..." A heavy sigh fell out of her chest and she took a step back. "Wait for me on the couch, Peter. I have to get something real quick."

When she disappeared from view, he stared down at his half-made sandwich and the sad looking slice of ham he didn't even get to put down.

Whatever this was better not be as bad as the turning blue thing. He didn't know how much more he could take.

But he forced himself to sit back on the couch and waited until May came back still dressed in her maroon scrubs. A round box of old wood was clutched in her hands, delicately carved and intricately designed. Serpents weaved around the sides amongst patterned flowers and wolves and horses, and when she placed one leg against a couch cushion and took a seat, he saw the single, branching tree designed on the top.

"What... What do you remember about your parents?" May ventured.

"I know they were scientists. Dad was a geneticist, Mom was a molecular biologist. Um, and all those things you and Ben used to tell me," he answered. Was it bad that he didn't know more? "But like what I actually remember from when I was younger? Not a lot, s-sorry."

"No, no, don't be sorry. It's not your fault," she said, and her grip tightened around the box. "Before we get into this, I want you to know that Richard and Mary loved you with all they had."

"Oh, yeah. I know." He never once doubted his parents' love for him, and for all he could remember, it was all warm hugs and forehead kisses and holding hands while crossing the street. "Did something go wrong? I mean, before you guys took me in?"

"I wouldn't say it was wrong, but... you get to decide this one, kiddo." May tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and exhaled through her nose. "You weren't Mary's. She loved you like you were her own, but Richard met someone at one of those big science conventions before they started dating. He only found out about you when you were almost eight months old, I think, and by then him and Mary were already married."

Peter's teeth clacked together at the force of his jaw tensing; his fists were clenched in his lap and his eyes blew wide. He could hear people chatting on the sidewalk floors below, cars idling in the lots, and his own heartbeat in his ears.

May plowed forward, ripping off the rest of the bandage.

"I don't know anything about your biological mother. I don't think anyone does. But when she came forward to introduce you to Richard and Mary, they fell in love with you and eventually came to some sort of visitation agreement. Your mother had you most of the time, but every now and again she would disappear without a word and then come back acting like she hadn't gone away in the first place. It drove Richard crazy." She sighed. "Lora. We never did find out a surname, either. She was so secretive and tight-lipped, it was like all she ever said was a riddle."

Peter finally managed to unhook his jaw, and a familiar bitterness wormed through his chest. Thick, suffocating. "But she didn't want me, huh?"

"No, baby, look at me. Look at me, please?" He raised his head reluctantly. "Lora _loved _you. She loved you so much that it almost hurt seeing how carefully she held you, how close she'd keep you. And whenever she looked at you, Peter? It was like you were her stars." She sniffed and wiped a stray tear. "I'd only met her a handful of times, but that was enough to know you were her whole world."

"Then why am I just finding out about her now?!"

"Because..."

_"Full custody?" Richard repeats. Peter, a mere week away from his first birthday, blows spit bubbles while transfixed by the utensils on the table. His stubby little fingers reach for one, and Ben quickly pushes them away. He bounces the boy on his knee to keep him from crying, eyes darting back and forth between his brother and the woman standing at the window. "I—You don't want him anymore?!"_

_Lora casts her eyes over her shoulder, and one look from that piercing green gaze is enough to shoot a bolt of uneasiness through the other four adults in the room. Peter babbles on, oblivious. "Do not accuse me of such," she hisses. Her hair spills just past her shoulders like a brush stroke of ink. "That child is the breath of my lungs, and should he ever perish, I shall follow."_

_May gulps. Damn, why was this woman always so intense? Dressing in black suits, strutting in those stiletto heels that could cut a man, wearing a face that's never friendly unless she was planting black lipstick kisses all over Peter's soft tufted hair._

_"W-We would love to have him full-time," Mary intervenes. "We were thinking about children and were considering where that put Peter, but it's... if you love him so much, why give him up? The joint custody agreement had been going along so well, unless—"_

_"Had I any other option, I would stay," Lora informs stiffly. But one look at Peter and that infallible mask of hers chips away. "My... father has been wondering about my bouts of absences. He can never know of Peter."_

_Richard frowns. "Why not?"_

_Lora strides over to Ben to brush a finger along her son's chubby pink cheeks. The baby squeals, giggling and batting it away. May can see the other woman's face clearly here, and there's something about the way she looks at Peter that's so careful. So protective. So _miserable_._

_"Because he—my father—would kill him."_

"You'd think she was exaggerating, but she said it with such certainty that it started to scare _Ben_." May shook her head. "Lora disappeared after turning over all your documents and never came back. She left no number, no way of contact, no nothing. It's as if she wiped herself off the face of the earth." She held out the box, and her heart clenched at how Peter's hands shook as he took it. "But she did leave you this. And she said only for you to open it if you ever decide you want to see her again."

Faint horror shone in Peter's eyes as he traced one of the branches on the carved tree.

"Oh, Peter, I'm so sorry. I—I was waiting until you were old enough to understand. Whatever you decide about Lora is your decision and whatever you want to do, I'll support you. God, I should've told you sooner—"

"No, it's..." Peter cleared his throat and wiped his face with his sleeve as he stumbled to a stand. He knocked his knee against the coffee table, but his hands stayed clamped firmly around the box. "It's fine."

He thought of blue hands, mercenaries, masked menaces, a mother he never knew, a grandfather who wanted him dead.

No one said a thing for a long while.

"C-Can I think about this in my room?" His voice cracked. "Please."

"Of course, baby."

After he'd gone to his room, after she'd heard his door shut with a soft click, after she pretended to think he hadn't snuck out his window to climb up to the roof to sort out his confusion and grief, she went back to the kitchen for her cold mug of tea, sat down at the dinner table, and tried not to cry.

::

Hundreds of thousands of light years away, a pair of gold eyes flickered.


	4. Taco Buddies

It was five o'clock on a chilly winter afternoon, three hours before Sister Margaret's opened, when Peter planted his hands on the table and asked,

"Okay, so hypothetically, if you found out your dead mom wasn't really your mom and your actual mom is out there but no one's seen her in like fourteen years, but you have the chance to meet her would you take it? Hypothetically."

Beer dribbled from Wade's unmasked lips and back into the pint and Weasel took one long look at him before raising his hands over his head and walking over to the other side of the empty bar.

"Aren't you a little young to be having a family crisis that could potentially alter your development into a healthy, functioning adult?"

"Uh." Peter sipped at the Arnold Palmer drink that started to pop up in the mini-fridge in the 'break room', which was nothing more than a desktop set-up, a broken coffee machine, and a couch that looked like it was bought off a retirement home. "Yes?"

"Fuck. Alright, let Mama Wade impart his unbiased nuggets of wisdom—"

Weasel groaned from his spot tweezing bullets out of one of the pool tables. "Your last nugget of 'wisdom' was explaining how burritos were just squishy tacos—"

"You walked away from this conversation, you keep your nose out of my asshole!" Wade shouted. He flashed a grin back at Peter, the scarred skin on the exposed half of his face stretching in a way that looked like it hurt. "Okay, picture it. Sicily, 1922."

"These goddamn Golden Girls references in my goddamn bar—"

"BEA ARTHUR IS A GEM AND ANYONE WHO SAYS OTHERWISE HAS AN AGENDA. As I was saying, this is what you do, right?"

"Hypothetically," Peter reminded him.

"Yeah. Sure. _Hypothetically_. Drink your drink, Super-Boy. Hydration is important." Wade clapped his gloved hands together. "So you tell your actual mom to meet you at a cafe that serves cheesecake and crepes. The cheesecakes are a must, but the crepes? Croissants are a good substitute, but if you can't find any, store bought is fine. Then you talk about your feelings and once you tell her she wasn't there on your sweet sixteenth, she'll be burdened with the knowledge she missed such a milestone in your young, young life that she'll feel so bad that she'll go on a whole monologue on why she left, if she's staying, and fill you with empty promises." He looked at Peter's hands. "Why aren't you writing any of this down? Do you need a pen?"

Peter popped a nacho chip in his mouth from the plate they shared. He's not as good of a cook as Granny, but dang did this fake cheese taste like heaven. "I think I can remember the important parts, but can we swap the sweet sixteenth out for something else? Like, I don't know, my first day of school?"

"Not as big of an impact. Why? Was your sixteenth birthday a tragedy? Did you end up at the hospital? Oh! Oh! Oh! You drank until you blacked out and somehow ended up on the roof of your ex's house in nothing but a gatorade yellow speedo and ended up cuddling the keg stand you stole from that bastard Gavin?!"

"No, it's just—I won't have my sixteenth birthday until August."

And the beer kinda... waterfalled out of Wade's mouth. Again. All over the table and his pants, and Peter dragged the nachos to safety because he worked really hard on those and he wasn't going to waste it by making it into mouth beer nacho soup.

"You hired—" The pint slammed down so hard a spider crack shot up to the lip of the glass and Wade reached for the gun at his waist mid-lunge at Weasel— "_A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD TO WORK AT SISTER FUCKING MARGARET'S_?!"

He took two gaping strides at the man crouched behind a pool table when Peter jumped on his back and tackled him onto the grimy floor.

"Wait, d-don't kill Mr. Weasel!"

"I'm gonna kill him so fucking hard!"

Peter hooked his arm around Wade's neck to keep him pinned face down on the unpolished wood, but a gloved hand snapped around the scrunch of his hood and tossed him to the side as the latter jumped back onto his feet. Undeterred, the teen aimed the web shooters at each of Wade's hands and pulled to jerk him back onto the floor.

Or, that would have been the plan had he remembered Wade was still Deadpool, and Deadpool was also enhanced.

Wade wrenched his arms forward and Peter sputtered as he surged towards the back of that brown leather jacket. The pinprick that jolts up his spine to fizzle at the base of his head was the only warning he had to duck the elbow aimed for his forehead and used the limb as leverage to flip and kick the side of his head with the soles of his sneakers.

The man stumbled into a cluster of chairs and once Peter landed, six different apologies were already garbled in his mouth.

"Oh my god Wade I'm so so so sorry I just reacted holy cannoli are you okay—WHOA!"

A blur of dark and red turned into a flurry of precise kicks and swift punches, all of which Peter dodged with twists and jumps and ducks and when he tried to look through the blank white eyes of the Deadpool mask, he saw nothing. Wade caught his foot with the aim of slamming him against one of the tables but Peter, with every intent not to get another deduction for damages from his paycheck, webbed the ceiling, flung himself up, and used Wade's added weight on his leg to swing it up and down as hard as he could, loosening the grip and sending the body crashing onto the floor.

The wood floor shattered around him.

"I'm sorry, Wade! I'm sorry, Mr. Weasel!" Peter cried. He flipped back down and braced himself in a fighting stance as Wade grunted and picked himself back up. Weasel peeked up from the end of the pool table Peter landed on, glasses askew.

Wade didn't attack again. Instead, he hummed and tilted his head as he took in the scene of a teenager standing on a table and was inexplicably reminded of instances where tiny dogs stood on tall counter-tops.

"Stagger your feet when you're ready to fight. None of that wide-apart in a line bullshit unless you wanna get pushed over and your lunch money taken," he said. His mask eyes grew comically wide. "Oh. My. Gee. You're young enough to have your head dunked in a toilet. Do you have a bully that takes your lunch money?!"

Peter threw his hands up. "What the frick?! You can't just attack me then act like it didn't happen!"

"I'm not acting like it didn't happen. You were there, Weasel was being a bitch, I got thrown into the ceiling." He sighed fondly. "I remember it like it was yesterday." He pointed at Peter's feet. "Stagger."

"I—"

"STAGGER."

"OKAY."

It continued in this vein until Converse footprints were all over the green of the pool table, but Peter's legs were staggered with his left leading, both feet were angled slightly to the side, knees were slightly bent. And once he was all shuffled about to Wade's satisfaction, the man went back to his beer.

"And that is how you should align your bottom half when in a fight. Keep yourself moving and never stand flat-footed unless you wanna trip over yourself or give the other guy a chance to stuff his knife in your tummy." He munched on a chip. "Actually, you know what? Fork over your phone."

"Wh—You tried to punch me! Like ten times!" Peter exclaimed. He jumped off the table, "uh, Mr. Weasel I'll clean that up I swear. And I'll fix your door, double swear," and stomped back over to his stool. "What the heck, man? I thought we were cool!"

"We are! We're taco buddies!"

"Then why'd you try to kill me for trying to stop you from killing Mr. Weasel?!"

"Okay, one, I would've never actually hit you. Give me some credit. Two, Wease was supposed to have the job listing under some code mumbo-wumbo where fifteen year olds can't find it even on the far reaches of the second Google search page."

"What kind of dumbass do you think I am?" Weasel scoffed as he walked back behind the bar, dutifully staying just out of Wade's reach. "Of course I coded the job. It's only supposed to pop up for assholes like us." He pointed accusingly right between Peter's eyes. "_He's_ who you should be yelling at. I don't know what the fuck he did but he was the first one to answer the listing and managed to find the damn door only knowing what street we're on."

Two heads swiveled towards the teen and he shrunk slightly at the scrutiny. "I-I really needed a job, so I made a program that gave me daily updates on employers who had as little requirements as possible. Where else could I find a job that paid this good for a high schooler?"

"A program you made on your own?" Weasel prodded. Peter managed one nod before his boss was leaning over the table, eyes wide behind their frames. "Ferret, are you a baby genius? What code did you use? How did you set it up? How did you make it so you could bypass my security—"

Wade pushed his face away. "Save that nerd shit for later, Spock. What I wanna know is how you got in here and how the lurkers out front even let you in."

"When I was out in the suit I heard someone complain about the Hellhouse having 'stupid f-ing graffiti' on the door. The next day, I just walked around looking for graffitied doors," he answered. Weasel dropped his head. "Then I found one with some shady people hanging around—Brielle and Camden, by the way, the ones who eat the bones in their wings—and I didn't want any trouble, so I broke into your back door and made it look like I came through the front."

"You broke my back door?!"

"I fixed it before I left!" Peter defended. "You only had a few dead bolts and I can lift, like, at least ten tons so it wasn't hard to break. Plus, Granny Sal showed me where the tool box was!"

"_You can lift ten tons_?!"

"Are we just gonna ignore the fact that Brielle and Camden eat the bones in their chicken wings?" Wade questioned. "Because while I'm thoroughly disturbed, I'm now _thoroughly _intrigued and feel the need to inform you I'm only censoring myself because we're in the presence of my taco buddy." He threw his head back and downed the rest of his beer before making grabby hands in Peter's direction. "Hey. Phone. Phone. Phone. Phone. Ph—"

An old android smacked into his palm already unlocked. Wade only cooed at the background picture of Spider-Man posing for a selfie before he typed away to the sound of Peter trying to explain his apparently many transgressions to a Weasel that grew more incredulous by the second.

"—changed your keypad to tase anyone that gets it wrong more than three times."

"Is that why I found Kaia passed out in the alleyway when I took out the trash last week? Goddammit. I thought his liver finally threw in the chips. Turns out it was the dish boy all along."

"Aaaaaaaaand done," Wade chirped. He tossed back the phone that Peter caught without even looking. "Now your contacts have been updated to the highest quality and includes names that are one hundred percent not incriminating!"

Peter looked down at his screen.

_New Contact: _**trunk body**

_New Contact:_ **Not A Superpower**

_New Contact: _**PoolDead**

Wade leaned in and whispered. "That last contact's me." He stuffed a handful of now-cold nachos into his mouth. "Text me what days you're not saving the world or studying for a test so we can figure out how to make your form not trash."

"W-What do you mean?"

The red mask couldn't hide the raised eyebrow he knows the mercenary was giving him. "Ferret, lemme be real for a sec. Your fighting stance was ass, your defensive is like swiss cheese, your offensive doesn't even exist, that stagger thing is still giving me a headache—"

"Okay, I got it. I don't know how to fight, brag about it," Peter snapped, cheeks red in embarrassment. "Are you going to keep making fun of me or can I start to clean up all this mess?"

"Yeah, you don't know how to fight for shit," Wade said, and that burn of shame sunk deeper and clung. "That's why I'm gonna teach you."

Peter paused.

A year ago Tony Stark came to his apartment, lied to his Aunt, and brought him to Germany all within the span of three days to fight a group of superheroes that severely outclassed him. He'd been explained to, briefly, vaguely, about the Accords that blew up on his twitter feed that bore hashtags like #TeamCap and #TeamIronMan. He fought for Tony Stark because Tony Stark was his hero that could do no wrong, that he could trust because he could always count on him to make the right call after sending that nuke into space after the Chitauri Invasion, who only had the best intentions with Ultron, who tried to fight for what he thought was right.

Tony Stark saw him on YouTube, pulled his identity out of thin air, and brought a fourteen year old him into a fight that sent him back to New York knowing maybe less than what he went in with. He never got a real explanation.

He knew that if it wasn't for that spider bite or those webs, he could've been ended by The Winter Soldier or The Falcon or _Captain America_. Without his enhancements, he had no other skills to defend himself.

Mr. Stark would have known that too. Maybe he thought a multi-million dollar suit could make up for that.

Then the radio silence. Then the Vulture. Then getting the suit taken away. Then the building. Then Coney Island. Then getting the suit back. Then the radio silence.

"You... want to teach me?"

Peter tried not to sound too hopeful. Not when he realized his heroes didn't have time for the little guy.

"You're my taco buddy," Wade said like it answered the question. In some odd way... it might've. "I don't care if you're fifteen or Spider-Man, no buddy of mine is gonna get his ass kicked that easy!"

Peter doesn't know why he felt the sting of tears in his eyes, but he covered it with a laugh and reached for the rest of his drink. "Didn't I beat you, though?"

"Irrelevant." Wade waved his empty pint at Weasel. "Heard that? Ferret's under my metaphorical pigeon wing now. A Florida pigeon wing. A crusty Florida pigeon wing."

Nobody had helped him since he became Spider-Man. May would always be a pillar of support and Ned would always be his Guy in the Chair, but they didn't get what it meant to be thrown into the Hudson or to fall out of a burning plane or having a building collapse on them _with no_—

"Peter," he announced before his throat had the chance to clog up. The adults slowly turned to him, Weasel in horror and Wade in ever-growing anticipation. "My name's Peter. Peter Parker."

His boss' knees almost gave out. "You did not just tell me your real name. Please for the love of God tell me you did _not_."

But Wade flashed the widest grin and stuck his hand out, knocking aside the nachos. "Wade Winston Wilson, at your service!" he beamed. "Nice to meet you, Peter Parker!"

"Don't fucking repeat it! God, fucking—Pete—Ferret! _Ferret_, goddammit! The pool table isn't gonna clean itself and at least put a damn board over the hole in the floor—"

::

**Me:** i'm sorry to bother u but my friend put ur # in my phone _[6:01pm]_

**Me:** do you kno Wade?_ [6:01pm]_

**trunk body:** Mr. Pool! Yes, I am a taxi driver that drives Mr. Pool anywhere in New York should he need a ride. You name it, I can take you there! Any friend of Mr. Pool is a friend of mine! Your friend, Dopinder. _[6:09pm]_

**Me:** oh cool! _[6:10pm]_

_Contact Name Change: _**trunk body** to **taxi guy**

**Me:** they call me Ferret where i work _[6:11pm]_

**taxi guy:** A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr./Ms. Ferret! Your friend, Dopinder. _[6:15pm]_

**Me:** Mr. Ferret's fine? i guess? but u can just call me Ferret_ [6:17pm]_

**Me:** weird question but why did Wade name u "trunk body" _[6:19pm]_

**taxi guy:** That was because he heard my cousin Bandhu yelling when I had tied him up and locked him in the trunk of my taxi. It had surprised Mr. Pool, but he said he was proud of my choice of direction! Your friend, Dopinder. _[6:20pm]_

**Me:** congrats? _[6:24pm]_

**taxi guy:** Thank you very much, Mr. Ferret! Please feel free to contact me whenever you need a ride! :) Your friend, Dopinder. _[6:29pm]_

_Contact Name Change:_ **taxi guy** to** trunk body**

::

**Me:** i'm so sorry if i'm bothering u but Wade put ur # in my phone? _[6:45pm]_

**Not A Superpower: **Im not a prostitute, Im not looking for a hook up, Im not interested _[7:00pm]_

**Not A Superpower:** tell wade hes a dick and if you dont block my number right now I will personally come find you and slit your throat and leave your body in the gutters and Im not responsible to who gets to have their fun with your corpse _[7:01pm]_

**Me:** um _[7:03pm]_

**Me: **my name is Ferret? _[7:03pm]_

**Me:** i'll delete ur # if u want me to i swear _[7:03pm]_

**Me:** pls don't kill me _[7:03pm]_

**Not A Superpower: **wait from weasels bar? _[7:06pm]_

**Me:** yea! _[7:06pm]_

**Not A Superpower: **no youre fine. shouldve started with your name _[7:07pm]_

**Not A Superpower:** its domino _[7:07pm]_

_Contact Name Change: _**Not A Superpower** to **Ms. Domino**

**Me:** hi Ms. Domino! _[7:09pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** hi ferret _[7:13pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** what did that chode put as my name [7:13pm]

**Me:** Not A Superpower _[7:14pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** tell him ill admit its not a superpower the day I dont get a 21 in blackjack _[7:16pm]_

**Me: **sure! _[7:17pm]_

**Me:** u get that lucky? _[7:17pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** its a superpower _[7:18pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** seriously though if he gave you my number not as a joke then its probably just as an emergency contact. if you dont make friends at the hellhouse you dont get too far in the job. youre a good kid ferret. hit me up if youre in any trouble _[7:21pm]_

**Me:** thank u so much Ms. Domino! _[7:22pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** see you at the bar later_ [7:25pm]_

**Me:** i'll make sure ur wings come out xtra charred! _[7:26pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** :') _[7:31pm]_

::

"Your boss found out that you're Spider-Man?!" Ned whisper yelled. Peter's eyes don't stray from the TV as his fingers flew over his best friend's Switch joycons with every intent to finally beat that Super Mario Maker course they'd been stuck on for two hours. At least it was Saturday and they had all day to do it. "That's _insane_! What did he do? Was he mad? Was he surprised? Ohmigod he didn't fire you, did he?!"

"That was the first thing I asked and he said I was fine as long as I didn't scare him next time." Mario got decked in the face with a green shell and he flopped back against the couch to hand over the controllers. "I think he's okay with it? Once he put all the heaviest things he could find at the bar and told me to carry it and I did."

"And then?"

"And then he made me a quesadilla and called me mini-Hulk for the rest of the night."

"Dude," Ned gaped. "Your boss is _awesome._"

"I think he's really cool," Peter grinned. Weasel nearly had an aneurysm the other night after learning his real name, but he still didn't treat him any differently. Weasel was Weasel, same lame jokes and nicknames and being his boss. "I guess he's also really good with tech and grilled me on how I found the job."

"Right, at the House." Ned's excitement faltered. He turned, a soft frown on his face. "Hey, are you sure it's okay for you to be working there? I know your boss could be pretty nice and all, but... it's still the _House_. The place you won't even tell me the real name of 'cause you're scared I'll get stabbed or something."

"I-I'm not scared you'll get stabbed!"

"Come on, dude, you know what I mean. I'm just worried. You already have a lot on your plate with school, with Spider-Man, with your mom... If this place really isn't good for you..."

"It's fine, I promise," Peter insisted. He nudged Ned in the side when that didn't get a smile out of him. "If anything happens you'll be one of the first ones to know."

He held out his hand. After a beat, Ned took it and they did their handshake.

"Fine," he sighed. He looked back at the TV. "But keep me updated, okay?"

"Yeah, man. Don't worry."

Ned eyed him one last time before he restarted the level and Peter pulled out his phone.

**Me:** it's peter _[5:04pm]_

**Me:** i can meet up tomorrow if that's cool _[5:04pm]_

**PoolDead:** yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasaaaaaah _[5:11pm]_

**PoolDead:** TACO BUDDIES 4 LYFE! _[5:12pm]_

_Contact Name Change:_ **PoolDead** to **taco buddy**


	5. Gold

Heimdall obeyed the orders of the Realms. Heimdall obeyed the orders of Odin. It had always been those two in that succession, and no other had he deigned to extend his services. Of course there had been the occasional talks with the Queen Mother, the allowances he'd made when Thor had been brash, and the times Loki's craft and cunning had been convincing one way or the other. Yet at the end of the day, he was The Protector. The Gatekeeper.

The Watcher of Worlds.

Golden eyes smoothed over to Earth's surface—a realm which had been garnering more and more of his interest in these long stretches of moments. Thor's banishment. Loki's attack. The birthplace of the Avengers.

_"I know I am in no place to ask this of you."_

Humans were interesting beings. They always seemed to make the most of their time despite having some of the shortest lifespans in the galaxies and reached towards the stars even when their fragile bodies had never been made for it. Jane Foster was a truly impressive one to meet and since then, he passed the turns of the universe by watching that blue green planet and the ones that made it so alive.

He tilted his head.

Well. He supposed that wasn't quite the truth.

_"You know Odin. You know... that I cannot take this risk. I will not bet _his _life on a whim."_

He honed in on the sight of a boy with brown hair as he meandered out of that human tavern—a bar, he recalled—where the child spent the nights laboring for those less inclined to principled standing. That bar was no place for a boy, especially not this boy in particular.

But, he seemed to enjoy it there and suffered no ill-treatment. The employer treated him with respect and the patrons, though they were rowdy and loud and had blood forever stained on their hands, never trained a weapon towards him. So perhaps there was room for a babe of fifteen winters there after all.

_"Will you watch over him where I cannot, Heimdall? Will you make sure he grows up to be every bit of his father?" A quiet pause. "And every bit of Mary, as well?"_

_"Not you, my prince?"_

Heimdall obeyed the orders of the Realms. Heimdall obeyed the orders of Odin. It had always been those two in that succession, and no other had he deigned to extend his services.

_Loki turns and laughs, and Heimdall doesn't need to see his face to know that there isn't a smile on his lips or a spark in his eyes._

But once, he'd been asked a favor.

_"He would be happy if he grew up to be nothing like me."_

And despite everything, it was this one favor he'd always kept.

::

Peter's back slammed against the blue cushion mats and he _wheezed_.

"Need a break?" Wade skipped over with a third of a foil-wrapped burrito in one hand. He'd donned his full red tactical suit and his mask was scrunched all the way up to his nose as he ate. "We've been going like, three hours? Not a lot for our mega-stamina, but you look like you cannon-balled into a kiddie pool except there's no kiddie pool."

"Just say I'm sweaty," Peter coughed as he rolled onto his side.

"You're sweaty."

"Thanks."

There was an old gym a few blocks down from Sister Margaret's. Old punk belted out from the busted speakers overhead and the peeling white brick walls were slathered in ancient boxing paraphernalia. Wood floors, punching bags, a boxing ring, and lots of open space—"The Gym By the Alley" absolutely had to be a cover shop for the mafia or something.

Peter said exactly that. Wade laughed but didn't confirm nor deny.

They'd walked in looking like the oddest pair: a high schooler with a stupid science pun on his shirt and a shifty looking dude with a hood over his head and a black duffel over his shoulder. They did get a few looks on their way over from their meeting place at the bar, but the second they stepped past the creaky metal door the couple people that were already in the building hadn't cast a single look in their direction.

And honestly, the gym looked pretty cool on the inside. Old-school, for the most part. Peter didn't even know what exactly they'd be doing until Wade changed into his suit and started dragging those blue gymnastics mats into the boxing ring and told him to change into his work out clothes, stand in the center, and fight.

And Peter had been ignorant enough to think that this would be _easy_.

Because it turned out that one Wade Winston Wilson had been part of the military and Special Forces before taking up a Gold Card residency and had absolutely been holding back when they fought at the bar. Top of his unit, expert in hand to hand combat, a soldier dishonorably discharged because he wouldn't complete the mission that would have killed a little girl he once passed on the street.

Peter exhaled and pulled himself back to his feet. He swayed and leaned against the ropes for support, blindly reaching for his water bottle and slightly denting the metal when he tipped it into his mouth and nothing came out.

"Whyyyyyy," he whined and slumped back down onto the mats. Wade snorted and tossed him an opened gatorade bottle from across the ring. Peter snatched it lazily out of the air and downed it in one gulp.

"Goddamn, I have more," Wade said as he gestured at the duffel. Unzipped, at least ten orange caps peeked out for them to see. "Is this another Super-Boy thing? Like, increased metabolism and all that jazz?"

"Yeah, actually." The teen peered out the ring to see pretty much everyone else had cleared out for the night. "I have to eat over triple the normal caloric intake of a normal adult male. You don't?"

"Nah, I just like food."

"Mood."

Peter splayed face down near the edge of the raised platform and grabbed his phone.

_8:46 pm_

_[4 Unread Messages]_

**May:** Let me know when you're on your way home or if you'll be swinging around. ;) My shift tonight that won't end until 5 am. I'll have Wednesday and Thursday off this week! _[6:32pm]_

**Guy in the Chair: **dude loook at tihs vid _[7:14pm]_

**Guy in the Chair: **ur a meme! _[7:14pm]_

**Mj:** hey loser, we're adding more practices starting next sem. We need to get ready for finals, will update in the group chat when everythings finalized _[7:50pm]_

He threw his phone onto his bag and kept his face planted on the mat.

It smelled like a McDonald's Play Place.

"My angst-dar is bleeping from all the way over here," Wade said as he topped off his burrito and balled up the foil. "Kobe!" Missed the trash can. "Okay, more like Derek Fisher. But I digress." He dug through the duffel bag and brought out a whole six pack of gatorades and another burrito, all of which he took with him when he plopped down next to the kid's prone form. "Hey, drink all of this and eat some din din. We're going until you can land consistent punches and you can't do that if you're passed out. I mean,_ I_ can, but you aren't there yet."

"Dude, are you seriously mom-ing me right now?" Peter's muffled voice questioned incredulously.

"Mama Wade takes his job very seriously," the man nodded solemnly.

"Are you even old enough to be my mom?"

"I'm in my early thirty-nines."

"Dang."

"I birthed you when I was twenty-four."

"I get it—"

"Which means nine months before that I got jiggy with—"

"WADE!"

Peter punched his side and sat up to drink the light blue gatorades Wade gave him. "Um, thanks for this. Really. I could've just gotten water from the fountain outside," he smiled. "I'll get us tacos next time we meet."

"Petey, you're only allowed to buy us food once you have a stable job that isn't Wease's shithole. 'Til then, I'm grub control."

"But—"

"Ah-ba-ba!"

"W—"

"Nope!" Wade clapped his hands over his ears. "Lalalalalalalalalalalala—"

Peter rolled his eyes and drained the bottle before reaching for the slightly warm burrito.

When he first met Wade, it'd been at the bar. Where else could it have been?

_It was his second week on the job and he was in the middle of washing some dishes when the door slams open and a voice he'd never heard before yelled, "Back again, fuckers!"_

_"Weren't you in China?"_

_"Look at this K-pop star going international."_

_"You still come here, hotshot? Thought you would've run for president after you whole 'this-is-the-story-about-how-I-got-justice'—"_

_"Fuck off, Frank! You're gonna make him tell it again!"_

_Peter washes the rest of the dishes and dries them off before setting them next to Granny Sal and picking up the plates stacked with steaming snacks._

_When he steps out onto the floor, he sees a superhero in red at the bar. Well, probably not a superhero if he's at Sister Margaret's, but maybe a vigilante? Nah, even vigilantes steer clear of this place. But what type of merc dressed up in a legit suit like that?_

_He delivers the food with a grin and a nod before slinking all the way back to the bar where Mr. Weasel's filling a shot glass with whipped cream._

_"Please stop making me make blowjobs."_

_"I will never stop making you make blowjobs," the Red Suit says. He turns his head at Peter's approach, and the latter can clearly see the black material around the white eyes of the mask. "Holy shit, you hiring out of daycares now?"_

_"Kindergartens, actually," Peter remarks dryly. Red Suit snorts and looks at his boss. "Need me to send that out to someone?"_

_"Nah, I'll get one of the girls to do it," Weasel waves off, jerking his chin at one of the two women on the floor tonight. The waitresses never stayed long and usually had stints at the bar that lasted a few weeks at most, or the ones that came back stayed a month before disappearing to who knows where. Sometimes they'd have three of them out all at once, but most times Weasel made sure to schedule them to come in the days Peter didn't have a shift. "The blonde one. She's been looking to shank someone for days and this dipshit's blowjob is gonna start the first fight of the night."_

_"Oh, uh." Peter blinks. "Sounds festive." Weasel drags the shot across the bar and he glances back at the Red Suit. He's pushing his pint back and forth and humming some off tune, but makes no motion to push up his mask to take a drink. Weird. _

_Regardless, he sticks his hand out. Better to make nice with everyone instead of getting them to aim their guns at his head. "I'm Ferret, by the way. Mr. Weasel's new dish boy."_

_Red Suit sputters out a laugh. "'Mr. Weasel'? I bet the fucker gets off on that." But the stranger takes his hand anyway, and Peter notes the worn leather of the combat gloves that meet his fingers. "Deadpool's my stage name. Once I got called Douchepool, sometimes I'll get called The Jabbering Butt-Plug, but honestly I think Captain Delicious Pants is the way to go." Okay? "But you can call me Wade!"_

He'd found out Wade was an enhanced after that—turned into what he was from some "crazy British shitstick" named after dish soap, or at least that was what Mr. Weasel told him, and was one of the best mercs out there despite "never shutting the hell up and giving his clients brain ulcers".

But most importantly, he found out that Wade was a regular _and _Mr. Weasel's best friend, even if his boss wouldn't admit it.

"Alright, what's eating those big brains of yours?"

Peter took a bite of his burrito. Chicken, bell pepper, onion, tomato, cheese, beans leaking out the side, amazing. This was super greasy and definitely not something he should be eating all the time, but damn did Wade know the best restaurants in the city. "What do you mean?"

Wade only stared at him at this point. It was a little unnerving to stare through those mask eyes that weren't supposed to express as much emotion as they actually did, but Peter knew he didn't have to give an answer if he didn't want to. Wade wasn't May who constantly worries and made sure to hug him whenever he was there and when she left; Wade wasn't Ned who thought Spider-Man was simultaneously the best and worst thing that had ever happened to him and didn't understand why sometimes getting stabbed on patrol was better than sitting on buildings, staring at nothing, doing nothing.

Wade wasn't Tony Stark, who hadn't talked to him since offering him a place on the Avengers.

Wade was Deadpool, and they both were mercenaries who killed for money. Peter knew they shouldn't be taco buddies who see each other at one of the seediest bars in the state, but here they were at some mafia-controlled gym in a boxing ring that probably hadn't been repaired in over ten years.

But...

"... I-Is it cool for me to unload a bunch of stuff right now?"

"Hold on, lemme put on my listening ears." The man actually made a motion of digging into one of his pockets, pulling out something non-existent, and stuffing it onto both sides of his head. He then scooched forward and held his knees against his chest like a kid at story time. "I'm ready!"

"It's just... I think I've been a little stressed lately? I don't know, man. I don't think it's a Spider-Man thing because I've been doing it for over a year at this point, and the upgraded suit is really awesome, but sometimes I think about how it's StarkTech and none of it's really _me_. Like, come on, I'm supposed to be taking care of a multi-million dollar suit when I begged Mr. Weasel for this job because I want to help pay rent? It feels kinda wrong to have it and I know it can be taken away at anytime. But I'm really thankful for it. AIs and heaters are a lot better than the sweatshirt and pants I got by with before, I just wish..." He shrugged. "But that's fine. I'm pretty sure it's my mom I keep thinking about. I've always been Richard and Mary's kid and all of a sudden I'm not? My aunt says my mom loved me and she had to leave or else my grandfather would've killed me. And, like, I want to meet her but it's been fourteen years. What if she doesn't want to see me? I don't want to bother her if she's been doing okay, and if she already has another family by now, doesn't that make me 'the other kid'? I don't want to disappoint her like that." He sighed and took another bite of his burrito. "I'm s-sorry. This is all kinda stupid, huh?"

Peter looked up. Wade's half-masked face had gone decidedly blank and the silence could be called unsettling.

"We," Wade started, "are going to get _so much_ ice cream. After you finish eating your burbur and drinking your gatorades, we are walking all the way to the nearest bodega to get some cookies n' cream, rocky road, peanut butter cup—you know what? We're gonna get ape shit. We're getting some mint chocolate chip, hit that toothpaste tang."

"O-Okay?"

"Okay!" Wade kicked his feet out and laid back against the sunken blue mats. "Keep talking if you feel like it, Super-Boy. Mama Wade's here to listen."

The smile that pulled at his lips came first came as a laugh at Wade's ridiculousness. Seriously, what's with this guy? He could be anywhere else instead of hanging out with some punk fifteen year old who couldn't get his life together for shizz.

Burrito beans dripped onto his hand. It only made him smile wider.

He got home around eleven that night. Half the fridge got filled with the tubs of ice cream he couldn't finish and he dumped his sweat-soaked clothes into the washing machine.

**Me **to **Guy in the Chair:** it's a curse _[11:14pm]_

**Me **to** Mj:** aye aye captain! _[11:14pm]_

**Me **to** May: **just got home, boss had extra ice cream and made me take a bunch back _[11:14pm]_

::

**taco buddy:** it's not stupid, petey_ [12:27am]_

::

**May:** That's dangerous. How will I ever stop myself?_ [1:03am]_

**May:** Is that why you got back so late? _[1:04am]_

**Me:** nah _[1:06am]_

**Me:** i was out with a friend _[1:06am]_

::

Peter tapped his pencil against his chemistry homework. It wasn't anything near as complicated as the web formulas that he was constantly developing, so really he should've been done with this packet already. They'd gotten it today and it wasn't due until the end of the week, but the quicker he finished longer assignments like that the easier it would be to manage his time between his job at Sister Margaret's and hanging out with Ned and being Spider-Man and training with Wade and spending time with May when she wanted to get dinner together and studying for decathlon—

He stopped tapping. _When did I get so busy?_

He sighed and threw his arms behind his head as he leaned back, a sudden fatigue winding around his muscles and filling his veins with lead. Sleep came in bouts at night and he was lucky to get four or five hours before his eyes snapped open and he rolled onto his stomach, awake. Anxious. But what did he have to be anxious about?

His Spider-Man suit was hung in the back of his closet, the mask tucked away in the space above the clothes rack. Maybe even heavier than his veins was the guilt crystallizing in his chest. He'd been going out less and less in the suit, too.

A frown tugged the corners of his mouth. Not his suit—the _StarkTech_ suit.

Peter sighed even louder and opened one of his desk drawers to root around for some of the snacks he kept stashed away. Dried fruit, saltine crackers, trail mix, granola bars. But his fingers skim against carved wood and he only barely restrained himself from snatching his hand back out.

Right. That.

He bit the inside of his cheek and pulled the box out. A perfect circle just a bit bigger than his palm with engravings he'd been able to memorize with how much he stared at it ever since it was handed over to him.

A simple gold latch at the bottom of the tree kept the box shut. He didn't know how May had been able to keep it around this whole time without giving in to the urge to open it to get maybe some sort of clue as to where Lora had disappeared off to all those years ago.

Was he really going to do this? Fifteen years he'd lived just fine without her, right? After Richard died, after Mary died, after _Ben _died… he didn't know what else there was he could do. May had already gone through so much and now there was someone named _Lora _he had to think about?

But, he knew loving them probably wasn't the issue.

It was the chance of losing someone else that was eating him from the inside.

But then again… what would he be losing if he didn't take this opportunity to try?

Peter pressed a thumb against the latch.

Something cold flashed against his skin. Brief, something he would've missed if he wasn't so laser-focused on the task. But then the gold brightens a touch before it dimmed back to its normal color and the latch flipped open without him moving his finger.

_What the heck was that._ Sweat dripped down the back of his neck. _What the flippity hecking __**heck **__was that._

His spidey sense was quiet. It was enough for him to push open the cover.

A raw green stone cut into the size of a nickel with thin gold wire wound around the center. Attached to the top was a simple gold chain and was set against some black satin cushion.

A small folded note lay underneath it.

_If you wish to meet me, wear the necklace and I will find you._

_If you do not, I understand. The world deserves you more than I ever will._

_Forever Yours,_

_L. O._


	6. Peter

He finished his Pre-Calc homework cross-legged on the ceiling, a block eraser between his teeth and a pencil flying through equations on the paper held up by his forearm. A half-eaten sandwich was squished in his free hand and beside him were three capri-suns dangling from webs just within arms reach. There was no AcaDec practice today, meaning Karen had just finished reading the entirety of _The Great Gatsby_ on double speed while he took notes for AP World History. Finish this week's notes, show all this section's work for the math packet, write that essay for the American Dream unit in English all before they were let out for winter break...

"Oh, shoot," Peter groaned. "I forgot to leave Happy a voicemail after patrol yesterday!"

He webbed his phone from his bed and dialed Happy's number—it was kind of embarrassing he had it memorized but, you know—and put it on speaker.

He let the rings pass. They always did.

"_The number you have called is currently unavailable. Please leave a message after the tone._"

_Beep._

"Hey, Happy! It's Peter." How many questions were left? Fifteen? Ugh, why was Mr. Dallas such a hard-butt? "Sorry I didn't call after patrol yesterday! I was caught up with a few things after and ah—" He'd stopped by the bar for a bit before he went home, something about Mr. Weasel needing him to get measured because some dumb merc needed a disguise for a job and couldn't get a real three piece suit to save his life and Peter was close enough to his size anyway— "yeah. I stopped a robbery at a shop next to May's favorite bakery, stopped a car from falling off an overpass, and stopped a bus from running over a bunch of pedestrians when its brakes gave out. Lots of stops, huh?"

He didn't mention how he'd seen Genevieve-from-the-bar staking out from a cafe across her target's workplace. She came down every now and again, always asking for extra cheese on her nachos and never cleaning off the blood from the toes of her boots.

An executive assistant died that day. Murdered. And all his money laundering and labor racketeering came to light in the papers the very next morning.

"Anyway I'll, uh, stop taking up so much of your time. Patrol wasn't that busy yesterday, so." He tapped his phone screen and a bright_ 6:18 pm_ stared back at him. "I'm gonna be late! Bye Happy, have a nice rest of your day!"

He flipped onto the floor. It was a bit early to be heading out to Sister Margaret's, but it was a big shipment day and Mr. Weasel definitely couldn't haul all those firearms into the break room all by himself. There were also a couple swords coming in too, apparently? Not that it was really his business, but inventory-ing swords sounded awesome.

He sucked down all three capri-suns and tossed them in the trash, stuffed his homework in his backpack and threw it all onto his bed, snagged his wallet and keys, shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth as he tugged on a beanie and slipped on his thicker jacket.

Peter picked up his black Vans and laced them up on his chair in record time and just before he left, he caught sight of that round wooden box sitting innocently on his desk. And he stopped.

He hadn't touched the necklace. Hadn't even opened the box again since reading the note and suffering a minor freak out that had him slamming the top shut and pushing it to the far side of his desk where it was too easy to pretend to forget about for a few days.

_'And what about the obviously not normal way the box just straight up glowed and opened?! What about that, Parker?!'_

So maybe that was part of why he didn't want to get anywhere near that thing again.

If you wish to meet me, wear the necklace and I will find you.

Like that didn't sound vaguely threatening, but okay.

"This is going to end so badly," he mumbled as he reached for the box. "Please don't end up being some weird magic spell thingy that's going to summon some vengeful wizard to kill me."

The latch glowed and opened for him, revealing that same stone necklace and folded up note.

The gold chain almost shimmered when he held it up and there was no clamp on the smooth, shining metal. Luckily it was long enough to slip over his head, and when it didn't shock him or strangle him or try to melt into his skin, he tucked the stone in the inside of his shirt and rushed out the front door.

Hopefully "Death By Jewelry" doesn't get etched into his gravestone.

::

When May set all the groceries on the table, she knew Peter must have gone to work since he wasn't bounding down the hallway like an excited puppy asking if there was anything left in the car and if there was, _don't worry I can go get them!_

She sighed fondly. Peter was just such a good kid, save for the times she thought he dropped out of all his extracurriculars because he was up on some new drug habit or alcohol binge as impossible as that sounded, but finding all of that attributed to the 'Stark Internship' where he was actually _beating up criminals in Queens and the outskirts of Manhattan_ seemed a whole lot worse than teenage rebellion.

Sometimes she wished the problem had just been drugs or alcohol because nowhere in a book store could she find a How-To about caring for your suddenly superhero nephew.

She stored away an entire bag of chicken breasts in the freezer, pushing aside the tubs of ice cream to barely make space for the meat. Maybe it wasn't all that good for her to swallow down all her worries and concerns and let Peter do his thing with no curfew and the one condition that he update her every few hours, but what else was she supposed to do? His new job let him out in the very early morning and it'd just be plain unfair if Spider-Man wasn't allowed the same freedom, not that the vigilante ever really stayed out past one.

She put away the gallon of milk and all the fresh vegetables Peter insisted she invest in with his newfound chef-ing skill he said he learned from the cook at the pub, and she admitted that the meal-prepped tupperware of simple pastas and rice he made for her to bring to work only made her tear up a little bit.

After all the groceries were stocked away, she let herself into Peter's room to start any laundry he might've forgotten about with how busy he'd been lately.

In his closet his hamper was full and behind it his Spider-Man suit hung like a perfect decoration. The mask was nowhere in sight, and idly she wondered why he didn't take it to work with him. He always had it during school and whenever he went to Ned's, but lately...

May shook her head and picked up the hamper. Just as she was about to head out of his room, her eyes caught on the box that had haunted the back of her mind for years. It lay wide open on her nephew's desk atop scratch paper and sticky notes, and whatever had been inside it was long gone.

A dull pain hummed in her chest as she stepped into the hallway.

Whatever Peter wanted to do, she would support him one hundred percent.

::

Sixteen years ago he'd been Lora Olstad: businesswoman, Stanford University graduate, and had a primary interest in the histories and ancient Nordic culture. Granted, all of those things about her had been fabricated under documents and a few well-placed illusions, but it was enough to escape the stone eye of the Allfather when all he ever wanted was to step away from life on Asgard and _breathe_.

These past few months since settling on Earth and the adjustment—he liked to think—was going as well as it could as a returning inhabitant initially belonging to another realm. His brother believed him to have died nearly four years ago on the wastelands of Svartalfheim and he knew his mother had made a full recovery from the impalement the Dark Elves inflicted upon her; a hair's width away from her heart did that blade run, and perhaps had it hit he truly would have done something he regretted.

But he did not return to Asgard. Nor did he hold any desire to.

He flipped through the book in his hand, green eyes shaded brown behind the spelled glass of his spectacles. The long black hair he'd cut and with a touch of his _seidr _he'd colored it to match his eyes, and for all those who had come across him not a single flicker of familiarity had awoken in their gaze.

To them, they did not see Loki Odinson, Fallen Prince of Asgard.

They saw Loren Fjeld, conservator and historian at the New-York Historical Society Museum and Library in Queens.

Loki smoothed out the page he'd been searching for and set a bookmark in the crease before laying it atop the stack accumulating on his desk.

Perhaps settling in New York and Queens in general was far too great of a risk to take. Even if his invasion was old news and even if the city had been rebuilt anew, it was not a place he'd want to get caught by any of those Avengers, least of all Stark—_The Iron Man_. And truly, would he try to mask his real reason? There was only one other thing that could pull him back to these tall metal structures once the Tesseract cleared itself from his mind and all chains of servitude had finally unshackled from his wrists. One other person.

Midgard had a novelty he entertained himself with long before, and it sat inside a wallet most of these humans insisted on carrying around with them day to day. A small slip of glossed paper it was, a frozen moment of a baby boy with pinkened cheeks and a gummy grin. It was the one thing Loki ever cherished, and there was every chance it could be the one thing he would ever see of _him _again.

Now fourteen years later, he had taken one of those 'apartments' in Queens with the stifled hope that they would pass each other by on the street and she would get to see if he still smiled the same way he did as a babe.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He was pathetic. What made him think his boy would ever want to see him again, after everything? He abandoned his child before he grew to have a chance to remember his own mother. That warranted nothing but anger and resentment and fury and—

"_I only wanted to protect you from the truth."_

"_Why?" he cries. "Because I-I am the monster that parents tell their children about at night?"_

"Loren!" someone behind him called. "You're still in? It's ten past six!"

Loki turned in his seat to see one of the older curators making their way to his desk. She was a wizened old woman with a wide smile and a never-ending stream of tattoos she'd gotten from the traditional artists of her home on the Polynesian Islands. She'd been the one to hire him and, consequently, had been the one to fall for all the lies that spewed from his mouth. Not that he hadn't the skills for the job.

"Mrs. Iolani," he greeted. "My apologies, I have merely gotten caught up in this work. The volumes you have at hand in this library are quite interesting, and I'm making headway in a handful of the artifact cases you've left for me."

"Well it's nice to see someone so invested in their work, but that doesn't mean it should hole you up in the building two whole hours after you should've been home." She sighed and shook her head, but the smile never dropped from her lips. "Nowhere to be on a Thursday evening, young man?"

Loki almost snorted as he picked up another book. A young man, was he? "Not at all. But if it soothes your nerves, I will only be an hour at most before I head back for the night."

Iolani laughed and smacked his back, the force strong enough to send the book sprawling out his hands. He grimaced.

"I'm bringing in some of my coconut pie tomorrow. If you want some, I suggest you get in bright and early and snatch yourself a piece before they're all gone!"

His face pinched slightly. "Yes, I will be sure to be in to try some of your… _charming _pie."

She patted Loki's shoulder. "Don't push yourself too hard, Loren. You do good work here."

And with one last pat on the shoulder, she was out of the offices and he was left with stacks of books and case folders and artifacts in need of restoration.

The work reminded him of the artists in the palace and the metalsmiths in the forge. As a child he'd watch from afar, marvel at the hands that could create something from nothing before being ushered away to his tutors.

He huffed a short laugh. Here he was avoiding Asgard, yet there he still was. Chasing its memories.

How pitiful he'd become as a villain thought dead—

The necklace pressed against his chest underneath his button-up suddenly flared with a deep heat that burned through skin and muscle and bone and marrow; the necklace he'd never taken off in fourteen years and had desperately hidden using the last vestiges of his seidr when he'd been cast into the palace dungeons.

The necklace he clung onto like a frail thread of hope. It burned hotter than the fires of Muspelheim, stronger than anything he'd ever felt in over his thousand years of living.

He stood, knocking the books off his desk and staggering backwards into his chair.

"I am on my way," he whispered, his voice hoarse to his own ears. "Wait for me, just wait—_please_."

::

Heels clicked on the icy sidewalks alongside the dark street. This part of the city was not the most... respectable of places, and it made Loki apprehensive as to why the necklace led her down this way. She'd waited about an hour or two before she pursued the path the necklace drew her on to be sure it wasn't a fault in the enchantment—as if she could make a mistake on something so simple, but it was a thought—then she followed. Shady figures lurked in the corners of her eyes and she knew they weren't foolish enough to try anything once they caught sight of the warding sneer poised on her black-painted lips.

Not many tried their luck when she assumed herself as _Lora_. Her seidr made a seamless shift into the feminine form as the brown melted off the true blackness of her hair and her eyes resumed that deep, unsettling green. Her dark double-breasted coat brushed against her knees with each step and the more she walked, the more her worry flourished.

_He _was here? In one of these decrepit buildings?

The necklace thrummed and Loki stopped at the door with the visage of a snarling dog. A few people loitered around the front, smoking cigarettes and eyeing her up and down the closer she approached. To the right, a golden plaque bore the title _Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls_.

"Sorry, sweetheart, this isn't a brunch spot where you can sip mimosas," one of them said once she was a few steps away from the door. Loki stopped and met his gaze. "I'd turn around now unless you'd want to get into an accident that gets that pretty face full of glass."

"I appreciate the sentiment—" Her hand shot towards him and a dagger materialized from inside her sleeve, the blade pushing up against his neck just light enough to send a trickle of blood down the silver— "though I would appreciate it even more should you mind your own business and allow me to attend to mind."

"Fuck, chill out—"

She forced him onto his knees, the blade digging deeper into his skin as she towered over his form. "_Move_."

"Yeah, yeah! I got it, shit!"

The rest of them scurried out her way as she grasped the handle and pulled it open. The hallway she stepped into engulfed her in some sort of red light she found rather unpleasant, but just past it was a dimly lit establishment filled with the scent of something not unlike mead mixed with Volstagg when he lost himself in a feast.

The patrons of this—tavern?—seemed to be plucked of a similar vine. Weapons she recognized as guns were on everyone's waists and on tables and attached to hands that waved and gestured. It was certainly a busy place synonymous with leather and roars and clinks, and Loki walked herself to the strip of table that ran from the door to the side of the tavern and seated herself on a stool.

"Here to paint a name?" the barman asked. The frames of his spectacles are thick black and brown-blond hair fell around his face. Loki quirked a brow.

"Paint a name?"

"Okay, so that's a no," he nodded. He turned to face the bottles that lined the shelves. "Pick your poison. Margarita? Straight whiskey? Don't know any of that classy shit so don't start naming Apple-Fapple whatevers."

She thought back to when she first met Richard and the alcohols they'd consumed at that convention. It had been the only time she'd been anywhere near that sort of thing. "An Old Fashioned will do. You have my thanks," she said. The barman threw a thumbs up over his shoulder and as he started on her drink, her gaze drifted back to the clientage. Most everyone here was older and violent and even the maidens that served drinks on trays had a wildness around the eyes as they smacked wandering hands and threatened bodily harm with any empty glasses they picked up.

How... quaint.

The longer she looked, the more she found no sign of _him_. Yet the necklace on her chest only burned warmer.

The barman slid a glass of amber liquid over to her, topped with a swirled rind of an orange. "An Old Fashioned," he presented. "But before you keep hanging around let me cut to the chase here, lady. I haven't seen you around here, so you probably don't know the rules. Unspoken, you know, for safety and shit."

Loki rapped her nails against the table and considered the man before her. "Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing in your building that may even begin to harm me, but please, carry on."

"Jesus, you're one of those types," he mumbled under his breath before he cleared his throat. "So, one, don't go telling any of your Breakfast at Tiffany's friends about this place. See all these fuckheads out on the floor? We're not great, but seeing that you got in, you're probably not too great either." Her lips quirked and she lifted the glass to take a sip. "We mind our own business here and we don't rat out to the Feds. You hear something you don't like, you keep your mouth shut, but that's negotiable for pedophiles or those types of fucks. If any of those undesirables pop up, let me or one of the girls know and we'll get it taken care of. _That _type of nasty shit I don't tolerate and neither will a lot of the other guys. 'Specially Wade, and the last thing I need is an aggro Wade fucking up my bar."

"Wade?"

"You'll see him when you see him. Red suit, loud fucker, annoying as hell." The barman flapped a hand. "Anyway. Name's Weasel and—"

"Say that to my fucking face, Booth!" someone snarled behind them. Both he and Loki peered out and spotted a burly man with a long gray beard pulling someone up by the shirt to spit in their face.

"—that's the first fight of the night. God, we should really have a grace period or something. We opened a fucking _hour _ago." Weasel sighed and dealt Loki an exasperated look. "Call if you need anything, but like after I take care of whatever this is." He walked around the long table and raised both hands above his head. "Hey! Booth! What the hell did we say about breathing exercises?!"

Loki chuckled under her breath and turned back to her drink. Humans really were peculiar sometimes, and it seemed even the worst of them had some humorous value to them. But that amusement was quick to crumble to concern when she doesn't spy a fluff of brown hair anywhere in or near the growing brawl.

She dragged her finger along the rim of the glass. Had she truly been wrong?

"Ferret!" one of the men from outside called over the din of shouts and thrown fists. He poked his head in from the red hallway. "Got someone checkin' in!"

"Coming!" a young, _young _voice shouted back from beyond the white swinging doors on the other side of a metal staircase. "Send them to the end of the bar, please!"

The man soon disappeared from the hallway, replaced by a not-quite middle-aged woman with a bruise on her cheek and her arms wrapped around herself. She shuffled into the tavern and took a careful seat just a few stools away from Loki's own perch. Only a few seconds after, a boy came through the swinging doors with a stained white cloth around his waist and short-sleeved shirt with some sort of... mathematics symbol on them? Perhaps as some Midgardian whimsy?

But it was dark and his face was rather shadowed, and the sight of him sent her necklace into a frenzy.

_Oh._

"Hi," the boy greeted the woman. His voice was far too off to be akin to a man's, but it was comforting in that childish, innocent kind of way. The woman peeked up through her curtain of red hair and blanched. "Manuel said you were in for a Gold Card?"

Gold Card?

"You're... you're a kid..." the woman murmured.

"My genes give me kind of a baby-face, I guess," the boy laughed, and Loki instantly saw the avoidance for what it was. He pulled out a yellowed notebook from somewhere under the table and flipped to the newest page while clicking a pen. "You can call me Ferret, and I'll be leading you through the process while Mr. Weasel's busy." A glass shattered, and the boy beamed. "May I please see your ID?"

The woman was a thirty-two year old fitness instructor named Kristy Watson-Price and she never stopped casting apprehensive glances over her shoulder. She flinched at every loud thud or sharp crash, and Loki was sure to avert her eyes at the right moments and took sips of her drink to show that she _wasn't _focusing on the conversation beside her.

'Ferret' scribbled a line of notes on the paper before sliding back the ID. "Who's this Card for, Ms. Watson-Price?"

Her bottom lip wobbled. "My husband, Henrik, he... he was so much nicer before we got married. He was alright with not having children and we even got a dog but—but he just gets angry and starts hitting the dog when she tries to stop him from hitting me and he's got so many friends on the force that I-I just can't go to any precinct to tell them that he's been-been..."

Ferret set a reassuring hand on her wrist and offered her a small smile. Loki saw the anger brewing in the tense muscle just beneath his skin. "It'll be taken care of, I promise," he said. "So I'm guessing this is a full hit?"

Watson-Price bowed her head, her next words barely making it past her lips. "Yes." Shakily, she reached into her jacket and brought out a thick envelope. "How much?"

"For your situation? Five thousand."

She blinked. "That's... That's a lot less than I..."

"Yeah, we get that a lot," Ferret said. He pushed a few buttons on the machine next to him. "Are there any upcoming events that can get you out of town any time soon? Or is there like a vacation you can take, a convention, a road trip...?"

"Um, I'm going to my cousin's wedding in a few weeks and Henrik won't be going with me."

"Cool! What dates will you be gone? Also I'll need your husband's full name, age, occupation, photo." Once her husband's name was out her mouth, Ferret typed something into the machine and it hissed and spat out a metallic gold card. He picked it up and pocketed it, but not before Loki spied the name _Henrik Price_ printed on in silver.

It wasn't until the end of the transaction that Loki finally realized just what had been done. Watson-Price had paid five thousand dollars to have her abusive husband killed. Assassins were a known practice on Asgard but were not utilized by much of the common folk, yet Midgard had an entire system operated on the very idea. _Fascinating_.

Though what had captured the majority of her attention had been how kind the boy appeared when he spoke to this woman, how at ease he'd put her and how polite he'd been. It swelled Loki's spirits to see he'd been raised so well. But, that didn't explain the fact on how he'd become a merchant for this business in the first place. Did Richard and Mary know? And if they did, how could they allow this to happen?

Loki turned her head as the guilt in her stomach wound around her organs and squeezed like a vice. Then again, she hadn't set foot on Earth until working alongside the Chitauri in a haze of blue and blinding pain. She hadn't once asked Heimdall for updates and never snuck onto Earth herself to inquire of his well-being.

She had no excuse. No place to talk. If she'd been any ounce of a mother Frigga had been to her, maybe...

"—and that should be about it? If you have any questions, though, you'd have to ask Mr. Weasel." Ferret leaned to the side. "Looks like the fight's wrapping up so he'll be back in a sec." He held up the new Gold Card and smiled, but there was no trace of joy in his face. "I'll send your hit info to the best merc for the job."

But then his posture relaxed and when one of the low lights cast a ray along his cheekbone, it was so glaringly obvious he was just a child, an infant in Asgardian time who would still need another several hundred years before he would even be allowed to hold a sword.

Loki shut her eyes and breathed. At least now she knew one of the things he'd inherited from Richard.

"Will you be okay for the next few days?"

Watson-Price nodded. "As long as I stay out of his way, h-he shouldn't try anything..." With tougher resolve, she clenched her fists in her lap. "I can make it until the wedding."

"You're really brave," Ferret told her sincerely. "I'm... sorry about Henrik. I know you probably don't want to hear it, but nobody deserves what you're going through."

The woman smiled, just as unsteady as the rest of her. "Thank you."

As Weasel walked back up to Ferret's side and drew him into a brief conversation, Loki glanced down to observe the plastic sheet under her glass. Now would be an opportune moment to approach him, would it not? If he normally relegated himself out of sight, perhaps there was another entrance to the tavern and she could approach him from there. Or she could call him over? No, that would only alert the Weasel and cause more problems that she hadn't the energy to deal with at the moment.

"Oh, uh, hi, miss! I haven't seen you around before! Do you want to order anything?"

Loki's gaze snapped up.

In the same instant, her breath caught.

One look into that face and the whole realm fell away. That face belonged to a babe swaddled in soft green blankets, a babe that only calmed his cries when pressed close to her chest, a babe transfixed when she sent wisps of her seidr to mold horses and wolves and serpents in the air like a moving mural.

One look into that face and she saw her heart.

"Peter," she murmured as quiet as the stillness of an Asgardian night. But he still heard her, and his entire face drained into a startled pallor. "Do you remember me?"


	7. Shades

Of course his Parker Luck would strike when it came to this. Yeah, he'd put on the necklace knowing what he was getting into, but—but he didn't expect her to show up literally _three whole hours_ after he left the apartment.

When Peter first went out to help Mrs. Watson-Price, he'd noticed the black haired customer down the bar. She was a pretty older woman who looked like a CEO who ruled her company with an iron fist. She sat alone as she sipped her drink and observed the rest of the bar with this sort of high class that everyone else definitely didn't have. He thought it was weird she was here, but his spidey sense never went off so he let her be and helped Mrs. Watson-Price with everything that needed to be done for in-person requests for Gold Cards.

He'd felt her gaze on him a couple times and he chalked it up to her own curiosity. The age thing threw a lot of new patrons in for a loop, but once they got past it they usually ignored him or got used to him being Ferret: Dish Boy Extraordinaire.

And the least he could do while working there was to get to know the regulars at Sister Margaret's and make the newcomers feel comfortable, so after he handed over Mrs. Watson-Price's case over to Mr. Weasel, he walked down the bar to ask the lady if she needed anything. Because why would anything go wrong because of that.

"Peter."

His name wasn't uttered loud enough for anyone else to pick up, but hearing it felt like a lightning bolt striking through him and his mouth went dry. The woman's eyes were sharp and green and sad, and he held onto the edge of the island table to keep himself steady.

"Do you remember me?"

His eyes darted around the bar. Mr. Weasel and Mrs. Watson-Price were talking, the mercs were settling down after the brawl, half of everyone here was either buzzed or well on their way to it. No one was paying attention to him. Them.

"N-No." Quieter, he added. "I'm sorry."

She waved a hand, fingernails deep green and pointed. "Never apologize, Pe—"

"Ferret," he interrupted. His cheeks heated at how rude he must've sounded and offered a small smile when she appeared more amused than offended. "I mean, um, I'm called Ferret here. Kind of like an alias? Like, half the people here don't use their real names, so..."

"I see. Ferret, then," she accepted. The way she sat reminded Peter of a princess or a queen, and just being near her made him want to stand up a little straighter. "As I was saying, there is no need for your apology. The only one here at fault is myself and, well... I suppose this is far from the ideal place for us to have this conversation." She swirled the glass in her hand, her face crumpling ever so slightly. Her eyes were only partially on him and avoided his gaze before slowly meeting it again. "Will you allow me a moment of your time? I know I am the least deserving of it, but would you be willing to listen?"

Sometimes Peter thought his heightened senses were the worst part about the bite. The heartbeat in front of him was just as loud as the whispers at the back of the bar and the clinking of glasses ground against the sides of his head with every scrape against wood tables or with the slam after every shot. Vaguely, he noticed Mrs. Watson-Price walked towards the door with her measured breaths and the scritch-scratch of fingernails against the metal buttons of her jacket.

He also heard the safety click off Mr. Weasel's pistol.

"I really want to," he admitted. Her eyebrows raised in surprise. "But I work until closing and that's not until two a.m. Um, I can't stop and chat that much during my shift and I don't think my break is long enough for us to talk about everything—"

"Very well. I will wait until your shift is over."

"H-Huh? You don't have to! It's only like nine thirty and I don't want to waste your time—"

"I do not have to, but I will," she said. He blinked and suddenly there was a book in her hands with some nondescript brown cover and a bookmarked tucked somewhere in the beginning pages. Faintly, he thought of the old box and its glowing latch. "Go on, _Ferret_. I will occupy myself here until the last lantern light is blown out."

Peter's smile turned nervous. "Oh, th-thanks? I'm really sorry you have to wait so long." He turned to head back to the kitchens, but pivoted on his heel when something else came to mind. "Um, what should I call you?"

Fingers paused to rest on the edge of the book cover as the woman glanced back up. The intensity in her eyes dimmed, but the corners of her lips still quirked up. "Whatever you are most at ease with."

"Then, uh, is Ms. Lora okay?"

(That name from his lips tugs along that dulling resignation, but she can never blame him. Of course it would be a long time before he would call her _Mother_, if he would call her such at all. But his courtesy and respect is more than she can ever ask for, after everything she hadn't done for him.)

She tipped her head. "Ms. Lora is just fine."

Peter nodded and paced back toward the swinging doors where Weasel hung by as he stared down Lora with unreadable eyes and a blank face. He didn't move even when the teen stopped beside him.

"The fuck did Catwoman want with you?" he questioned lowly.

"Uh. Um. Okay, so. Funny story?" Peter cleared his throat. "Do you remember that day with all my hypotheticals? Wade and I only sort of trashed your bar, I found out footprints are kind of hard to scrub off billiard cloth, and someone tripped over the hole in the floor that's a little bit Wade-shaped?"

Weasel slowly twisted his head to face him as soon as his memory pieced itself together. "Are you fucking serious."

"Well..."

"You're gonna stand there and fucking tell me Katie McGrath over there's your fucking _mo_—"

Peter flailed his hands. "Mr. Weasel!" he shushed. The man rolled his eyes as he mimed the motion of zipping his lips. "She wants to talk after my shift. Is it okay if she hangs out at the bar until then?"

Weasel sighed. "She's a grown ass woman. She paid for a drink, she can stay as long as she wants."

"Cool! And uh, I heard you take the safety off your gun. You should put it back on before you forget about it."

"Please, I've been handling guns for years. If I ever accidentally shoot off my foot, I'll eat one of Wade's socks." A pause. "Wait, you heard that from over there? With all this noise?"

"Yeah."

"... Huh." Weasel snorted. "Get your ass to the back, Boy-Wonder. You had a date with those dishes and you're running late."

Peter grinned and hurried towards the kitchen. One last look over his shoulder and Lora was right where he left her, eyes turned down and black hair impeccably straight.

He couldn't figure out the feeling of seeing her so close, just an arm's reach away. He'd never dreamed of having a mother because the only one he knew had been dead for a long time, and while Ben and May had never been the parenting types, they did their best. And he couldn't ask for more.

But his nerves were bubbling. His mind was blank. _He didn't know what to do._

But it was only 9:54 pm, and Sister Margaret's still needed her dish boy.

The green stone under his shirt brushed lightly against him as he stepped through the swinging doors where Granny Sal was piling a few pans into the sink.

::

Peter washed the blood off his fingers.

The water ran pink as it swirled around the metal basin and he scrubbed the grooves between skin and nail. Granny ambled around behind him to sweep up thick porcelain shards before she took the mop to wipe up red splashes on the brown kitchen tile.

If Wade had been here tonight, Peter would've had to wrestle the former's phone away before he posted the video of the drunken brawl on his Instagram, but he was out on a job in Belarus and said he'd bring back souvenirs by Christmas Eve.

"If those boys could stop draggin' their little arguments back into _my _kitchen, I'd very much appreciate it," she tsked. "Thinkin' they can come up in here and use my knives..." She shook her head and patted the teen's shoulder. "You've got some good moves, Ferret. Saves an old woman from bustin' out the ladle."

"You've been talking about some shoulder pains lately, so I didn't want you to make it worse," Peter said. He shook the water off his hands and dried it on one of the towels near the sink. No scrapes on his knuckles, no scratches on his hands. Huh. Maybe Wade's lessons were really paying off. "They were just a bunch of drunk idiots anyway. If they didn't start smashing plates on each other, I wouldn't have had to knock them out." He glanced down and sighed. "And I got their blood on my jeans, too."

He whined when Granny reached over and pinched his cheek.

"Oh, aren't you just adorable?" she cooed. "Seltzer water and lemon for blood, honey."

"Thanks, Ms. Granny. I'll keep that in mind."

Weasel popped through the doors. "Who the fuck starts a fight at closing? So inconsiderate," he grumbled, then raised his voice as he looked around in annoyance. "Alright, where did those assholes go? I'm making them pay for damages."

Peter jerked his head towards the back entrance where two bodies were slumped together, bandages plastered over their heads and what could be seen of their arms as they snored in alcohol-stained shirts. Weasel threw his head back and groaned.

"Dumbass dipshits."

"Tell me somethin' I don't know," Granny huffed as she squeezed the blood out of the mop on the free side of the double sink.

"They'll probably be unconscious for the rest of the night. And all of tomorrow," Peter said. He glanced over at the drunks. "Want me to leave them out in an alley a couple blocks over?"

"You're good, kid. It's fifteen minutes after your shift ended and I'm pretty sure you've got class later. Go home." Weasel waved him towards the bar. "Everyone cleared out, but Mia Wallace is still waiting for you at the bar."

"Mia Wallace?" The teen repeated. "Like, from that old movie _Pulp Fiction_?"

"Old?" the man sputtered. "That movie came out in the nineties!" His hand landed on the back of Peter's head and lightheartedly pushed him towards the swinging doors. "Get the hell outta here, Ferret. It's way past your curfew."

"I literally knocked some guys out and you're bugging me about curfew?" Peter laughed. "Bye, Ms. Granny, Mr. Weasel! See you on Saturday!"

"Bye, sweetpea!"

"Later, kid. I'll text you if something comes up."

Peter hung his apron on a nearby hook and grabbed the jacket next to it as he peeked into the bar. All the chairs were stacked on the tables and the stools were flipped in a line, all except one where Lora sat with three empty glasses and the same brown book from earlier. She looked up when he stopped close by, shutting the book and tucking it into her coat as she stood.

"All set?"

"Yeah, we can go now," he nodded. Her eyes flickered to his scuffed blue jeans, narrowing at the stains. "Oh, i-it's not mine! It's from those guys who stumbled into the back a bit ago and, uh, it's all taken care of."

"... I see," she responded simply. He shrugged on his jacket and led her out the bar through the front, the sound of her heels following close behind.

The night was just as cold as the last with day old snow lined on sidewalk edges and ice hiding in concrete cracks. Silence pervaded for the whole of a few minutes, neither of the two saying a thing as they passed under streetlight after streetlight.

Peter stared down at his beat up shoes with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, uncomfortably conscious of the woman by his side. Should he say something? Was there something to say? It was only a week ago that his brain started getting crammed with questions—how did May keep the secret for so long? Why was the best suit he had the StarkTech suit? Why would his grandfather want him dead? Why did he keep leaving Happy voicemails when he knew they weren't being listened to? Why was he turning blue? Why did—

"How are Richard and Mary?" Lora questioned softly. Peter's head snapped to the side, his jaw hanging slightly.

"R-Richard and..." He swallowed. "Uh, I guess there's not a good way to say this, um, Richard and Mary Parker died in a plane crash when I was four."

::

_What?_

Stunned, Loki met her boy's gaze. Anger, deep and burning, swirled in the depths of her gut. Three Midgardian years—only _three_ Midgardian years since she entrusted her child to the only ones who could possibly raise him and they'd been felled. Of _course _she would have this luck. Of _course _this would happen to her baby. Of _course _she had brought this misfortune on his shoulders when he only deserved the world and so much more.

"My... My condolences," she said. What more was there to say? What else could be said about the parents he probably could barely remember? "Who has been taking care of you thus far? Ben and May?"

He turned his head and she knew she said something wrong.

"Just-Just May," he mumbled. "Ben died a year and a half ago."

_'By the Norns,'_ Loki thought as she shut her eyes for the briefest of moments. She remembered Ben: a big man with a big heart who loved his wife and his brother and his sister-in-law and his nephew—not many people he did not have a space in his heart for, but that heart had bled out a year and a half ago and Peter had dwindled down from four adult figures to two to one in the years Loki had left.

"I am sorry. Truly."

"You don't have to be," Peter told her honestly, a small smile on his lips. It was too melancholy for a face as young as his. "It's not your fault, you didn't do anything."

And that was the problem, was it not? Loki didn't do anything because she wasn't _there_. Not for the first celebration of his birth, not when Richard and Mary perished, not when Ben passed, not for any of it.

She swallowed down her shame as they passed under another street light. "You must have much to ask," she said to guide the tides of their conversation. "I know this may not be the most preferred time to answer all of your questions, but I should be able to answer your most pressing ones now."

Peter's hair was a dark brown in the low lighting on these city streets. Wavy strands bounce slightly with each step he took and a small curl slipped over one side of his forehead. His nose, eyes, hair... that was all Richard. But she could see some of herself in his jawline and the rise of his cheekbones, and hopefully that was all he had taken after her.

He glanced up at her, eyes bright and budding.

Such kind eyes they were.

"Can you tell me about yourself?" he asked. Loki blinked, and his cheeks reddened. "Just a few things to like, tell me who you are? If you don't want to I totally get it and I can ask something else—"

"No need to panic, child," she said, and on the inside her own consciousness started to spiral. All of that time waiting in the tavern she had been preparing herself to answer those inevitable things, things like _why did you leave me_, _why did you come back_,_ did you even love me in the first place_. She prepared herself for mistrustful stares and doubtful words, and it floored her to be on the receiving end of neither. "It was merely something I did not think you would consider crucial."

Peter shrugged a shoulder. "I just thought it'd be nice to get to know you a bit? I never really got to know Dad and M—uh, Richard and Mary, so when I figured I should at least get to know you better." _While I still have the chance._

Loki glanced up at the tall buildings, blocky and dull compared to Asgard's grand architecture. The way this was going was nothing like how she played it in her head over and over and over again. Her own selfish being wanted him angry and bitter because at least she knew how to deal with _that_.

This boy had dried blood on his clothes and an earnest look in his eyes.

_This _boy, she did not know how to deal with.

She did not know which aspect worried her the most, but they only aggravated the fear in the center of her chest.

Fear was the moment she held the Casket of Ancient Winters in her hands only to watch her skin creep into blue shades of outcasts and monsters. Fear was feeling the crumbling of her own soul when the realization of living over a thousand years of lies clawed her down the scant days she spent upon the Allfather's throne while her brother was flung powerless into a world he never knew. Fear was losing every corner of her mind to an infinity stone the humans should have never unearthed and losing every thread of her body to a madman who wanted to balance the universe's scale with dust.

Fear was looking into the eyes of her baby and knowing she had to give up on being free.

Fear was the thought that if that baby ever gave her another chance, she would repeat Odin's every mistake.

"Your parents knew me as Lora Olstad," she started softly. "They believed me to be a business woman, a Stanford University graduate, and understood I had a primary interest in the histories and ancient Nordic culture."

"They knew you as Ms. Lora?" Peter repeated. He slowed to a stop and so did she. Reluctantly. "A-Are you saying Lora Olstad's not even your real name?!"

"Lora Olstad is one of the faces I wear. The name may not be real, but she is _me _all the same," she admitted. Honesty from the God of Lies? That was practically unspeakable even for her own standards.

But.

But she would never lie to Peter. Not even if she thought it for the best, not even if she thought it would spare him all the hurt that came with it.

She lifted her eyes up to the building they'd stopped by. "This is still a Parker residence, is it not?"

Peter whipped around and stared at the apartment like it offended him. "What the—" He turned back to frown at her. "Aw man, I was going to walk you home," he sighed, and her heart clenched. "I still can! It's only a little after three and—"

"There is no need for that. I can make it back to my residence quite fine on my own," Loki interrupted. The teen pouts. "It is quite late. You have studies to attend to later on, do you not?"

He almost sagged at the mere mention of 'studies'. "Yeah, my first period starts at seven thirty and my seventh period doesn't end until two thirty, but I should be free after that." He paused. "Wait, tomorrow's Friday? I mean, today? Oh shoot, that means I've got acadec until four thirty and MJ'll flip if I don't show up or if I come up with another excuse—"

Loki did not stop the quirk of her lips as Peter started to babble, patiently listening to the nonsensical way he talks about Neds and MJs and Mr. Harringtons all in one breath.

She had never been much of a talkative child, resorting to subtle mischief to act up under the ever calming tutelage of the Queen Mother. She learned to hide in plain sight on the battlefield when her magic had always been deemed the lessor sword and forged excuses to skip practices when all Odin ever did was favor Thor.

No, there was no room for her to be the loud one. But she was glad to see those types of wars were not ones Peter had to fight.

"—meet up tomorrow?" he asked. "I mean, if you're busy that's cool and we can pick another day if you want."

Loki pulled herself out of her musings and re-focuses on the shy, hopeful stare she was given.

She wondered if he would look at her the same way when he found out just how much blood stained her hands.

"Your availability opens up after your 'acadec' after four thirty, you said?"

"Yeah! Is that okay?"

She nodded once. "Of course. Tell me, is it possible for you to meet me inside the New-York Historical Society at your earliest convenience?"

::

Peter hooked his thumbs around the straps of his backpack as he stared at one of the sculptures on display. _The Indian: The Dying Chief Contemplating the Progress of Civilization_, the label read. He didn't know much about art or paintings or anything like that, but they still looked pretty cool even if he and Ned preferred to geek out over robots or new lab tech, but he could already hear MJ telling him that he should be more well-rounded in this stuff but, well. It was kind of hard to learn more about the things he wasn't good at when he was trying to keep up his science grades for those scholarships while trying to Spider-Man and knock out rowdy bar-goers all at the same time.

"Thomas Crawford."

Peter blinked and looked over his shoulder. "Huh?"

A well-kempt man slowed his stride to stop by the sculpture. He wore a simple white button up tucked neatly into dark gray slacks that cuffed smartly along his polished brown oxfords. "The sculptor of this piece." The man gestured to the white marble. "Quite the tragedy, I must say. At the peak of his career he had developed a case of diplopia and sought expertise for a cure. Certain that Crawford had been afflicted with a tumor, his physicians' experimental methods of treatment lead to the destruction of the eye and his death at the young age of forty-four years. You might have seen his work before. Have you ever visited the territory of Washington D.C.?"

Either Peter was experiencing an _extreme _case of deja vu or his mind was playing tricks on him, because he swore there was something so familiar about this stranger but he couldn't put his finger on it.

He didn't recognize the brown hair or the brown eyes or the brown glasses.

His spidey sense was silent. He kept his fingers close to his web shooters just in case.

"Ye-Yeah, I went on a field trip there once. Cool stuff. I saw the... capitol?"

The man chuckled. "Then perhaps you glimpsed the _Statue of Freedom_ atop the Capitol Dome. One of Crawford's most popular works, but alas, he had not lived long enough to see what had become of his works."

Peter dragged his gaze back to the sculpture. The gears in his brain churned—the way the man spoke was just off enough to be odd and seriously, he sounded _exactly _like Ms. Lora. But could they be the same person? The stranger was definitely taller than Ms. Lora had been even with her heels on and his shoulders were wider.

_"I had a primary interest in the histories and ancient Nordic culture."_

Maybe her brother? Or cousin? Or something?

Or...

Peter's eyes flickered over to his own hands. He was bitten by a spider and gained superpowers. His hands turned blue under extremely cold temperatures. He didn't shiver in the winter anymore.

His life had turned weird and stayed weird for a long time. With his luck, maybe this was just another one of them.

He slowly raised his head. "Are you, um, Ms. Lora...?" he ventured cautiously.

The man said nothing for a moment.

Then, an impressed smile pulled up his lips. "Very good, Peter." He plucked off his glasses, and brown irises instantly melted away into a bright, iridescent green. Peter's fingers twitched against his shooters. "As I am, I am known as Loren Fjeld, but." He slipped his glasses back on and the brown resumed like it never left. "Perhaps it would be in our best interest to carry on our conversation elsewhere, hm?"

::

**A/N:** Hey guys! I know the first chapters of this story had been getting updated once a week, but I'm sorry to say that updates are going to get slower from now on. Classes and lab are taking up most of my time all seven days a week, and that means primarily this fic and Eight get slow update schedules.

Thank you for your patience! I'll try to have the new chapters of Frostbite and Eight up as quick as I can!


	8. Brilliance

Peter was a _brilliant _child.

Loki wasn't blind to the boy's nerves, to his caution, to the way his fingers wandered to those odd black bands encircling his wrists. He never thought the boy would equate Lora and Loren so quickly when there truly was nothing _to _equate, but the brain that ran behind wary doe eyes had puzzled out similarities and inconsistencies and—

He led his son out of the building and onto the sidewalk, his pride a swelling thing in his chest. "Are you hungry?"

Peter startled and glanced up. "Oh, uh, I could eat?"

"Come, then. There is a stall nearby that procures these exquisite 'rice bowls' that may curry your favor." Loki eyed the lingering doubt in that young face and sighed. "After then, I will tell you all you wish to know. But for now, will you lend your trust to me once more?"

Peter fiddled with his jacket sleeve as he glanced at the people that passed them by. There was something churning in that head, thinking, thinking—how much genius was hidden in that thinking, he wondered—before they locked eyes. "You'll tell me the truth? All of it?"

"So I shall swear."

"...Okay. Um, but can I pick where we talk?"

"Of course." It surprised Loki to no end that it was all the boy demanded, though the lack of anger and confusion had surprised him even more. "Wherever you so choose."

It was after they had acquired a brown paper bag of rice bowls did Peter pull out his cellular device. "There's this place in Manhattan that'll be good for us to talk and I don't think there's going to be anyone there to bother us." He tapped his screen a few times, presumably sending one of those 'texts' to someone in his contacts. "And—cool! Our ride'll be here in ten minutes." He shifted his arm around the bag, insistent of being the one to carry it if he wasn't allowed to pay for it, and glanced up nervously. "Um... Mr. Loren? Or should I call you Ms. Lora? Or, uh..."

Loki allowed him to flounder a bit longer before taking pity on the embarrassed flush on the boy's cheeks. "You may call me by the name of whom you perceive," he said, a slight quirk to his lips. "Though there is another name I go by that may be easier for you to use, but you may not choose to due to its... connotations."

"If you don't like the other name I won't use it."

"It is not that _I_ dislike the name, it is that others simply would not react well to it. Though I could not care less of their reactions, it is easier to not deal with it at all."

Peter frowned. "That's kind of dumb. If it's your name and you like it, it doesn't matter what other people think, right?"

Loki couldn't stop the small smile that grew on his face. "Your words are kind, child. I am truly unfit for it."

Peter didn't know what to say to that. So, he returned that small smile with a shaky one of his own and glanced down at his device. The little screen lit up and a picture of him and another chubbier boy with a wide grin took up the space.

A translucent white box popped up.

**trunk body: **Here! Your friend, Dopinder. _[5:12 pm]_

**trunk body:** I am the taxi parked in front of the Blue Honda. Your friend, Dopinder. _[5:12 pm]_

Trunk body? What an odd sense of humor.

He followed Peter to the bright yellow taxi a few steps away just as a cheery man leaned out the driver's window. The man was young, much older than Peter though perhaps around the same age as the barman at that run-down tavern.

"Hello! I am here to pick up a 'Mr. Ferret'?"

"That's me! Nice to finally meet you, Dopinder."

"The pleasure is all mine, my friend!" the man reached a hand out and Peter shook it enthusiastically. Loki eyed the interaction with more of a clinical interest than anything; this was one of Peter's friends, then. A transporter. It's a very handy sort of friend to make, he thought as he opened the back door and allowed his son to slide in first before he followed after. With a slight wrinkle of his nose, he noted the interior smelled of leather and ash. "Where will I be taking you and your friend this fine day, Mr. Ferret?"

"Wade's apartment, please."

"Right away!" Dopinder reached for a long black cord with a metal end and held it back to them. "AUX cord?"

"Aw man, nice!"

As the cord was handed off, the driver turned to the second passenger in his vehicle and gave a welcoming smile. "And what should I address you as, kind sir?"

Loki didn't so much shift a single line in his face as he sat straight-backed in his seat, one knee crossed over the other and his hands folded in his lap. His eyes, searing in their cool detachment, immediately dismissed the common mortal. "'Sir,' will suffice."

Dopinder bobbed his head and faced back forwards, unknowing of the silent judgment passed over his own head. "Sir it is, then!"

Peter attached the cord to his cellular device and started playing some song Loki was sure doesn't translate to any other style in the galaxies. The tune was much like what he'd heard others his age would listen to at the museum and the female vocalist was pleasant to listen to, he supposed—and as the vehicle smoothly merged back onto the street, he looked at the boy who looked so small as he clutched the paper bag to his chest and stared out of the window.

"Wade?" he prompted. Peter jumped slightly and turned his head.

"Oh yeah, he's a friend. He's out on a business trip right now but he told me that I can use his apartment if he's not there." He shrugged. "I figured it was one of the best places to talk."

"... I see."

Was this Wade the same Wade that barman had mentioned the night before? Red suit, loud, annoying...

Loki narrowed his eyes. Truly, he questioned the sort Peter was surrounding himself with.

"Did Mr. Pool say when he would get back?" Dopinder asked. He flipped a turn single for a moment and guided the wheel into a left turn, and Loki took in the people they passed and the building they'd wrapped. Mr. Pool? Wade? Wade Pool?

"Uhhh, sometime next week, I think? He was really excited for this job, but he said he wanted to be back in New York by Christmas Eve."

"You would think he would try to enjoy the holidays in Belarus."

"Right? I asked him to bring me back the weirdest souvenir he could find."

Loki spent most of the ride as a silent observer, watching the interaction between Peter and Dopinder and noting the snippets of information of this 'Wade' or 'Mr. Pool' or whoever this individual was. They talked about the newest movies and 'air pods' and something called a 'switch,' whatever the contraption may be. And all through the while, he was quiet, memorizing the way Peter's eyes lit up when he talked and the way he gestured wildly with his hands when he explained things.

So expressive. So young. So full of life.

_"He would be happy if he grew up to be nothing like me."_

The taxi pulled up to an older housing unit in the midst of Manhattan and Loki reached for his wallet to pay for the ride, but Dopinder quickly waved him off.

"No need for that, sir! Mr. Pool has declared that whatever fare is made from any of Mr. Ferret's trips will be paid in full through his account."

"What?!" Peter exclaimed. "Wade didn't tell me that!"

"He made it very clear; this is the text he sent me about it." Dopinder scrolled through his phone as Peter slid to the edge of his seat and pressed himself close to the back of the driver's seat. "Ahem. Quote: 'If you charge the baby-face anything for any of your rides I'll actually shove my arm up your ass and make you my personal Kermit the Frog.' End quote."

"Baby-face? Uggggh, Waaaade," Peter groaned. "I'll talk to him when he gets back. Thanks for the ride, Dopinder, and I'm super sorry about him."

"Not at all! It was nice meeting you, Mr. Ferret and Sir!"

"Nice to meet you too!" the boy chirped.

Loki did not acknowledge the driver, taking in their new surroundings as the taxi peeled away from the curb. Peter led him to one of the buildings, a rather dilapidated one with red brick exterior and a series of stairs that connected walkways under windows. They squeezed into an alleyway and pushed through a slightly rusted door.

"Sorry, we have to take the stairs," Peter apologized, trotting up the staircase opposite of their entrance. "Elevator's busted."

"Your friend certainly has a taste for domiciles," Loki noted as they passed a few knives embedded in the wall. It certainly held the appearance of a training arena Thor, Sif, and Volstagg had ruined many a time.

"Oh man, if you think this is bad you should see the actual apartment."

The door they stop at would have been normal if it hadn't been graced with three separate locks and looped with a chain. Loki opened his mouth to comment, perhaps even a snide one as he was feeling so gracious, but his attention was sidetracked by the sheer fact that Peter had _all _the keys to all the locks and never made an odd face as he looped the chain around his arm, pushed open the door, and set the chain into a bowl shaped like an aubergine.

Inside the apartment was simply that of belonging to a barbarian.

There was one large room that contained the kitchen and the area of living, a door to a bathroom cracked wide open to reveal a shower curtain that depicted a man yelling on a mountain, and a last door shut with another set of locks behind the couch. There were piles of magazines stacked next to bullet boxes stacked next to an enormous stuffed caricature of a... rainbow sea turtle? Three window panes took up the majority of one wall and had thick glass installed from where he could see.

Fortified. How peculiar. And all the other walls bore those poster things and were layered on so thickly that Loki couldn't see what color the wall was.

There were piles of everything, _everywhere_, and he could only thank the single star left shining for him that at least the mess wasn't garbage.

Peter set his backpack onto the couch—which was an abomination that held the appearance of _draugr _skin covered in mold—next to a set of sharpened swords. "We can, uh, eat at the table if you want," he offered shyly, gesturing to that garish red table with different chairs of different colors scattered all around its border. Truly, the interior design of this hovel was something left to be desired, but Loki wasn't here to offer the criticisms that this place so obviously deserved.

He nodded and took a delicate perch on the chair with lemon yellow cushions and fur lining the arm rests, taking care not to make contact with said arm rests. The boy, on the other hand, took his own seat on the wooden chair shaped like a hand and opened up the paper bag to take out the rice bowls and utensils and handed them out.

"So, um..." Peter fiddled with a plastic fork. "I don't... I don't really know where to start?"

Loki exhaled quietly through his nose and glanced to the side where a pin board was set up in the kitchen. Brown and tacky, it was littered with pictures connected with red thread. "I do not know where to begin either," he admitted. He watched Peter stuff a bite of rice and chicken into his mouth, those brown eyes wide and open and curious. Guilt clouded the inside of his chest, all-encompassing and choking. "Perhaps I should first reveal my true identity, then you may decide whether or not you would like to learn more. Or even if you would ever desire to see me again."

Peter blinked a few times, digesting those words. He unconsciously drew his fingers across one of the black bands upon his wrists.

"It's okay," he said sincerely. "Whatever you have to say, I'll listen."

A dull ache rattled Loki's heart. Why did this child have to be so _good_?

But no matter. He was due to accept the consequences of his actions.

Loki raised his chin, all of the image of the royal son he was supposed to be, and allowed a soft golden light to engulf his body. As quick as that light beamed it was gone, and he had returned to his most common form.

Black hair was slicked back, curled around the ears and still cut just as short as his male illusory self's, and his face was glasses-free, allowing his green eyes to glimmer under the pig-shaped paper lantern chandelier. The white-button up had morphed into a black leather tunic with a curved strip of gold plating on the chest; the coat draped over it was of the same material, lined with green as gold vambraces secured themselves over the material on his forearms. Designs were etched into the metal, as all vambraces in the royal family were, with runes and protections like _Vegvisir _and _Ægishjálmr_.

"Sometimes I am known as Lora Olstad, and sometimes I am known as Loren Fjeld," he said. "But all of the time I am Loki Friggason, a former Prince of Asgard."

Peter dropped his fork.

"I—" Loki grimaced, searching for a foothold in his explanation that cast him so far out of his comfort— "I used to come to Earth to take eases from Odin, my... _father_. It just so happened that one time when I had come as Lora, I had met Richard. He had not known of you and I wanted nothing more than to spirit you away, either here on Earth or to another world to raise you all on my own, but..." He sighed. Peter's hands were balled in his lap and his gaze was trained right in the center of his rice bowl. "I understand that saying this may not mean much to you, especially when I have not been in your life for most of it, but I cannot convey how sorry I am that I had left you. I beg for your forgiveness, though I accept if it is not something I may one day obtain."

Peter didn't say anything, and an overwhelming anguish that stemmed from the pit of his stomach clawed up to jar his ribs and dig its sharpened nails into his heart. He had prepared himself for this rejection. A possible wave of disgust and revulsion. He had been prepared for it ever since he was thrown into the cells of his once-home, realization dawning that under the stone's influence he could have very nearly murdered his own son.

But just because he had foreseen this didn't mean he had been fully prepared for the hurt that would inevitably tide with it.

And just as he readied himself for the onslaught of verbal abuse that he knew he deserved, the boy lifted his head.

"... Is it true that, uh, that O-Odin would have killed me if he ever found out about me?"

Loki thought about the Allfather—when he had stripped Thor of his power and cast him wayside into a world that could have killed him; when he had looked upon his youngest _adopted _son in chains and set him to the prisons to rot.

"Yes," he answered quietly. "I believe he would."

Peter pressed his lips together. "If I never put on this necklace, or if Aunt May never gave me that box you left, would you still have come to see me?"

Loki opened his mouth to give what should have been the most obvious answer, a _yes _or an _of course_ or a _why would I not_. But then he remembered that everyone thought him dead, and for four whole years he had every opportunity to find his child again, to re-insert himself into his dear heart's life because there was nothing holding him back. But he didn't. He wasted those years absconding to different places before finally forcing himself to settle in Queens hoping that the proximity was enough.

(It wasn't.)

The Great Loki: A Coward. Afraid of his own son.

"I don't know," he said, because the truth was part of the everything that Peter deserved. "I left when you were young enough to not remember me that it would have been a presumption on my behalf if I had come back unannounced, so I had left that decision up to you with the box."

Peter visibly considered that, toying with his fingers as his eyes darted to different spots on the table. "What about when you attacked New York?" His voice hardened, eyes raising. "Why did you do it?"

Loki's face grew into that discomfort. The Chitauri and _Tha_—he pressed his fingers to his forehead, staving away the name and the memories that came with it. Drowning in that control still haunted him many nights when things were too serene and when things were going too smoothly, and still there were moments when he would think he saw a shadow in the crowd that would come to kill him, or worse—

"It was not my full intention to lay an invasion on Earth. Yes, I held my rage at happenings on Asgard and yes, I had made decisions that were of extremely poor taste, but not all of the blame falls onto myself."

One hand raised in a slight wave as he brought forth an illusion of the Mind Stone, floating with its smooth yellow cut and ethereal glow. Peter's face lit up in awe.

"When I had fallen off the Bifröst, a bridge between worlds, I thought it would have been my end. I am unsure how long I had floated in that darkness, but it was sometime then I was taken by a mad titan." He averted his gaze, unwilling to allow Peter to spy the fear he could not suppress. "There are many wrongs I have done in my life, but I would not have invaded had I not been under the Mind Stone's influence, and by that extension, the mad titan."

Flashes of blue sparked behind his eyes. He remembered the control, the pain, the surge of power and the burns it left.

"I was not of my right mind," he murmured. "I will admit I held no remorse for what I had done in the moment I had done it, but when the Mind Stone becomes the blood in your veins, there is no such thing as thinking for yourself, as yourself." He tilted his head. "I suppose you could make the argument that it was me, though it was not the me I chose to be."

He looked back at Peter, stunned to find him—horrified?

"Are—Are you okay?" he asked worriedly. "Are you still influenced? Is it—Can you still feel it?"

Loki surveyed him oddly. "No. No, I had been granted release from its control when the scepter and the tesseract had been removed from my possession." Peter slumped in relief, and his confusion mounted. "I must admit, I had not expected your concern."

"Why not?"

"Why not?" he repeated. "Do you not hate me?"

It was Peter's turn to look confused. "Why would I hate you?"

A disbelieving laugh escaped Loki's throat before he could stop himself. "After everything I've done?"

"I..."

Peter rubbed the back of his head.

(He thought of Wade and his hits, Mr. Weasel and Sister Margaret's, everyone that sat at those tables clinking glasses and dropping bullet casings. Loki might have killed eighty people before the invasion even began, but not everyone with a name on a Gold Card was like Ms. Watson-Price's husband. Wade killed, Mr. Weasel killed, Ms. Domino probably killed, and he was pretty sure Dopinder killed that guy that was in his trunk.

None of them were gods, yet weren't they just as bad as Loki, just in different ways?)

"I know you're not a good person for doing all those things. I know you weren't in full control when you brought the Chitauri and I know you were still responsible for all those things, and there's probably a lot of stuff I _don't _know you've done or if it's good or bad or if you even regretted what you did..." he trailed off. "But would you do it again if you had the chance?"

Well.

"I do regret my actions, if that is what you are asking, and I would not follow through with another attack of that magnitude in the future," Loki replied, choosing his words carefully. "I would never be the one to bring harm into your life. My absence from it was more than enough."

Peter's face went pink. "So you're really just here for...?"

"You, of course," the god answered simply. "You are my priority, and if I were here to wreak havoc on this Earth, I would have done it many moons ago."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" Peter raised his hands in front of himself. "I-I mean, about the Earth thing and the, uh... havoc... thing?"

As The God of Mischief and Lies, Loki never held speaking the truth to the forefront of his mind. From a very young age he learned to weave his speech into pretty sentences and charming prose so that others were so enamored with his words that they wouldn't notice the _underneath_, the deception. It was his perfected craft to get what he wanted and to get others to play along in his little games—magic and mischief and lies and deceit; he would never be known for fighting prowess or swordsmanship or anything else Asgard deemed were more important, so why not embellish all the things he could already do so well?

Then he had come to find out that he was one of the monsters his—_Odin _had so fervently disparaged, that Asgard so blatantly saw as the enemy. He was a child when he learned the stories of the monstrous Jotunn, the beasts and savages held back by a flimsy slip of a treaty; he was a child when it was instilled in him to hate everything those Frost Giants had to offer. Over a thousand years of anger. Over a thousand years of disgust.

Over a thousand years to learn he was the very thing he himself grew to hate.

He held out both his hands over the table, Peter marveling at the sight of the golden threads that laced his palms and the spaces between his fingers.

"I, Loki Friggason, formerly of Asgard, will bring no purposeful harm to the home of Peter Benjamin Parker Lokison, and will offer my own life and seidr should I not mark my words true. It is to this promise that I shall swear this oath."

The threads sunk into his skin, the light whipping from his wrists to his arms and finally through his eyes before he re-adjusted himself on the gaudy yellow chair.

"I hope that has satisfied your concern."

Over a thousand years he lived the lies his father told him.

He would not follow in those footsteps.

"I—did you—" Peter's face scrunched. "You would put your life on the line? For _me_?"

"You are my son," Loki replied, the easiest truth in his world. "I would do anything for you."

Peter stared for a few long moments before his eyes grew damp and he swiped at them with the sleeve of his jacket.

(Only Aunt May had ever said things like that, especially when his parents died and she'd wrap him in blankets as she held him, murmuring how everything would be okay and that she would make him all his favorite mac and cheeses until the end of time. It made him a bit queasy how simply Loki had told him those words like they didn't weigh a million pounds. Swearing his life with his magic? Maybe he didn't know all the ins and outs of that kind of stuff, but it sounded serious.

With great power comes great responsibility, Ben had said over and over and over.

But what did that mean when someone else would hold that for his sake?)

His eyes flickered back down to the table. "You didn't have to."

"I wanted to. I know you do not trust me, but one day I hope to be worthy of it." Loki crossed his legs under the table, yearning to reach out and brush away his child's tears but held back by the valley between them. "If you want nothing to do with me, I understand completely."

Peter's head shot up. "Huh? N-No! Don't go! I just..." He bit his lip. "I don't want you to leave."

The god dared not raise his expectation, but he couldn't push away the inkling of hope nudging through his chest. "No?"

"I want to get to know you," the boy said with a determined look upon his brow. "You're my, er, mom, and if you're not going to bring another Chitauri Invasion or anything like it, I think you deserve another chance."

_You deserve another chance_.

Loki blinked.

One sentence, four words, so simple even a child still learning to properly walk could understand. Yet, those words were so foreign to his ears.

_You deserve another chance._

And how could he deserve anything but the worst?

"I mean, if you're not hurting anyone anymore I really, really want to know more about you and your cool magic and—" He cut himself off abruptly. "Wait, are you the reason why I can turn blue?"

And just like that, any warmth Loki was basking in vanished.

His gaze sharpened, already out of his seat as he approached Peter's chair. "Explain."

"Oh, uh, I was walking back home after a shift when I touched a frozen pole by accident and my skin started turning blue? It was super weird because that's never happened to me before and I've been feeling less cold in winter, which is also super weird since I don't have to wear as many layers in the snow anymore—"

"Give me your hand."

Peter startled at the unsettled tone, but carefully held out his left hand. Loki reigned back his anxiety and fear just long enough to grip the smaller hand with the same care he used when sharpening his prized blades. At the very tip of one finger he allowed some of his true nature to flow, enough so that it would only cause a pinprick of pain if the boy wasn't receptive and enough to activate the blood if the boy truly carried _that _part of him.

The moment it touched Peter's skin, it didn't burn. Didn't leave him with the blackish bite of ice that even the most revered of healers couldn't reverse. Instead, his son's skin turned the exact shade of blue and traveled, traveled, traveled up his neck and to his face and though Peter was too enraptured with his own transformation to draw his gaze away, Loki knew his brown eyes had bled into a harrowing crimson.

_He approaches the Casket of Ancient Winters, sweat on his brow and hands clasped behind his back so he does not see them quiver. It's stored in the vaults, locked and guarded away with the rest of the spoils of war Odin had championed in the years of his reign. Yet, it's the Casket that undulates and glows and beckons him forward as it whispers things he does not understand and spikes a cool streak of ice in his chest that he feels belongs there._

_Loki grasps its carved silver handles and lifts._

"_Stop!"_

_He stops, but he doesn't turn. He stops, and he's frozen; it's become so hard for him to breathe._

"_Am I cursed?" he asks._

"_... No."_

_A lie._

"_Then what am I?"_

_Odin's voice fills the chamber with a calming baritone: important, grounding, everything a King should and ought to be. "You are my son."_

_Another lie._

_Loki turns, the blue receding from his skin as the rush of cold siphons out of him, leaving behind a scorching anger that boils his blood red. "What _more _than that?"_

Loki drew in a shaky breath and let go.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have done this to you, I..."

Peter's skin faded back to its usual hue at the break of contact. With that, his attention snapped back to his mother, both excited and confused. "It's okay! It's actually pretty cool, but, um, what was that?"

"That is..." _Monstrous. Beastly. Savage._ "... a story for another time, I believe. If that is alright with you."

"Yeah, no biggie. This must be a lot for you, so I don't mind." Peter picked up his rice bowl and smiled sheepishly, the heaviest brunt of the conversation past them. "We should eat, though. I think our food's gone cold. Do you want me to heat your's up too?"

Loki smiled slightly. "No thank you. Go ahead and heat up your meal."

As the boy wandered into the kitchen area, Loki allowed his mind to drift. Truthfully, if they had not shared the same Jotunn skin he might have shed his doubts on their relation because... well, because how could he, Fallen Prince, Traitor of the Peace Between the Realms, Dead God Walking, have been blessed with a _bairn _whose self shone brighter than the stars studded in the blanket of Yggdrasil?

He glanced out the window and down into the rush of the Manhattan night. Orange lights danced on the streets and people milled on the sidewalks like a colony of ants. He promised his son that he would not destroy his world and who was he if he would not keep his sworn promises?

No, whatever Peter asked of him he would do, because there was nothing that would ever matter more than to keep him safe and sound.

_I would do anything for you, Peter._

_Whether it be to die,_

Loki looked up as Peter slid back into his seat with his steaming bowl, and smiled.

_whether it be to kill._

"Tell me more about yourself," he said, taking the seat closest to the boy and folding his arms over the table. "I have already missed so much."


	9. Rear Sights

"So spiders are ectotherms, right? They need to get their body heat from external sources or else they run the risk of dying when water freezes in their cells, and the resulting ice crystals can damage things like the cell membrane and other structures. But did you know that some spiders have adapted different ways of actually surviving the cold?"

Peter turned his sticker-covered laptop around, granting Ned a full view of the screen and the various spiders that popped up on the google images search for 'arctic spiders.'

"So there's two strategies where they can do this: freeze-tolerance and freeze-avoidance. Different species can use both, switch between them, can only use one or the other—point is, any combination is possible. Freeze-tolerance is where ice crystals can form outside the cell and lower the freezing point of cellular fluids. This happens in invertebrates, mostly, especially in a lot of marine species and bugs and some of them can survive as low as -70°C! Um, which is like... somewhere around -90°F? About?"

Ned nodded, laser-focused on the pictures in front of him. "Uhuh."

"But in freeze-avoidance," Peter continued as he waved excitedly towards the screen, "which happens way more in vertebrates and spiders, is where water can be supercooled to -40°C, also weirdly -40°F, without forming any ice at all! And some arctic insects can even have 25% of their body weight be made up of anti-freeze compounds that have quick switching between active and inactive states, reduces water loss, and can be helped by freeze-tolerance. But the supercooling to -40°F is pretty much theory with a few rare exceptions as far as I could find, and the range for the most tolerable temperatures the body can handle is about from freezing to -4°F. And that makes a lot of sense because if intracellular freezing actually happens, it just plain results in the death of the organism."

"Right."

"Right. So." Peter leaned over the laptop to type 'wolf spiders' into the search bar and pressed enter. "The _Pardosa _species are wolf spiders that jump on their prey, and there was this study on the_ Pardosa groenlandica_—found in places like North America, Russia, Greenland—where they tested how cold-hardy they were. Their supercooling point was about 14°F and they could still move just a little below freezing which is amazing considering they can't, you know, thermoregulate."

His friend nodded emphatically. "Spiders are awesome."

"Spoken like a true genius. But! Keeping all this in mind—you remember how we were so sure that the spider that gave me my powers was some sort of jumping spider, probably from the _Salticidae _jumping spiders family because of the proportionate strength thing and the general sticking-to-walls-because-setules thing?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, I actually want to tweak our hypothesis. A bit." Peter started to pace the room as Ned eagerly watched from his spot at the desk. "I think Oscorp found a way to cross-breed a _Salticidae _spider and a _Pardosa _spider, or at least cross-engineered some genes, then ran a bunch of weird experiments and induced way too many mutations on the offspring, and one of the probably few offspring that survived those trials was the one that bit me."

Ned crossed his arms. "You lost me." A finger pointed to the laptop screen. "While the cold-surviving stuff was cool, what kind of basis do you have to make you think it could be part of the spider that got to you? I mean, it's not like any of that applies to you, right?" When his best friend said nothing, he gasped. "Oh. My. God. Do you have new powers? Does Spidey have new powers?!"

"Uh... I don't think it's Spidey that has the new powers. It's—I was trying to figure out the spider thing because I don't think the mutation could've survived in my body if the spider wasn't able to survive super cold temperatures."

Peter glanced at the open door, knowing May was out for a co-worker's birthday and wouldn't be back until sometime after he left for his shift that night. It was just him and Ned in the apartment this chilly Saturday, but he couldn't help but feel a little jumpy, no pun intended.

Loki had actually been... really nice yesterday? He asked Peter about his school, his interests, his friends, and whenever Peter asked questions of his own, Loki would either give straight answers or admit that he couldn't answer some of them right now. He liked that about his mom, that she said she didn't want to talk about certain things instead of coming up with a bold-faced lie which he didn't really expect from, well, the _God _of Lies.

"Okay, what I'm going to tell you right now doesn't leave this room because I don't know when or how I'm telling May or anyone else."

Ned leaned forward, almost toppling out of his seat. "I will take it to my _grave_," he whispered fiercely.

Peter cast one last look into the hallway before he ducked down. "Thursday I met my mom for the first time. She found me at my job and walked me home after. Yesterday after AcaDec I met up with her and we had this whole conversation and long story short, she's an alien from off-earth and she's the reason why my skin turns blue when I touch something way below freezing and why I don't feel as cold as I used to—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, _hold on_—"

"—so I think she has these ice or cold based powers? Talking about it made her uncomfortable so I didn't get a lot of info, but she said she would tell me about it later on and honestly, the spider mutation had to have been able to deal with subzero temperatures and not stay dormant if I still have all Spidey's powers right besides being blue, right?"

Ned full on gaped at him, and he was kind enough to let his friend take a moment to be like a sponge and soak. He wanted to ease into this whole My-Mom-Was-The-God-That-Destroyed-New-York thing real slow because anything more might make his best friend's head explode, and he wasn't sure how many people Loki was comfortable with knowing the truth, and that was sort of one of the questions he'd asked last night.

_"Wait, if everyone thinks you're dead, does that mean Thor also...?"_

_"Thor?" Loki's face holds an odd twist—regretangerresignation—before it smooths out, and he scoffs. "It will be for the best if my oaf of a brother continues to believe I am no longer among the living."_

_Peter doesn't understand the decision at all but it isn't his call to make, so he nods and finishes the rest of his rice bowl._

"Let me just... Clarify this for me." Ned held up his index finger. "Your mom is an alien. From space."

"Yeah."

A middle finger comes up to join the first. "Extremely low temperatures make your skin turn blue, and that's from your mom's side because she has some sort of ice power."

"Definitely on my mom's side, iffy about the power being ice-based."

The ring finger followed. "My best friend's an alien."

"Half-alien," Peter corrected, and in the next second he realized how crazy he sounded. "As far as I know, Richard Parker was completely human and he's definitely my dad."

"I think I'm gonna pass out," Ned commented faintly. He blew out a deep breath. "Spider-Man's half-alien."

"If you keep repeating that you're going to make me freak out." Peter flipped onto the ceiling and kept pacing as he ran his hands through his hair. "Oh my god, I'm half-alien."

Was _god _a weird saying now?

"Wait, wait, how long has this cold thing been going on?" Ned asked. He spun his chair back towards the laptop, narrowing his eyes at all the spiders that littered the screen. "You definitely still felt the weather last winter and your alien half could be latent because of Earth's atmosphere, making your human side dominant in this environment?" He sighed. "Oh man, this is insane and we're so not qualified for this," he mumbled under his breath. "But when did you start noticing that you were changing?"

"Uh..." Peter rubbed the back of his head. "Since... Since I destroyed Coney Island?"

"_Dude_."

"I didn't know anything was wrong! The blue thing happened what, less than a week ago? Everything went everywhere way too fast and I don't know what I'm going to do about it." He hopped back down to the floor and flopped onto his bed with a groan. "Mom's probably going to help with all of it after she tells me the whole story."

"Text me immediately when you find out and I'll make a google doc about your life, I swear." Ned hummed. "So what are you going to tell Mr. Stark?"

"Mr. Stark?" Peter shot back up into a sitting position. "Who said I was going to tell Mr. Stark any of this?"

"You're _not _going to tell him?" Ned's voice climbed a pitch higher. "Are you crazy?!"

"He doesn't need to know," Peter countered. Especially if Mr. Stark decided to poke around or even decide to meet his mom, which wasn't likely but he wasn't going to start taking any chances. All the Avengers must have had a pretty good idea about what Loki looked and acted like, and both Lora and Loren might be similar enough to be suspicious. He was more than willing to give his mom a chance, but he couldn't say the same about everybody else. "Besides, he's way too busy to have to worry about some high school kid who turned out to be a little less human than usual."

Ned's brow creased. "Peter..." The old android on the desk let out two short buzzes and he picked it up, reading the pop-up as he handed Peter his phone. "You are so lucky you have a text right now."

**Ms. Domino: **meet me in front of the bar tomorrow at noon. we're going to the range _[3:13pm]_

"But who's Ms. Domino?"

"She's one of the regulars at the House." Peter tapped out a reply, one short _'range?'_ because he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. "Uh, you remember Wilson? That one guy I told you I've been going to the gym with?"

"The ex-military guy who wanted to teach you self-defense?"

"Yeah. She's one of his friends and I got her number for emergencies."

(Peter didn't think about how it had been easier to keep the whole truth. From Ned. From May.)

His phone buzzed again.

**Ms. Domino: **fucking wade _[3:14pm]_

**Ms. Domino:** I shouldnt be surprised he didnt tell you _[3:14pm]_

Both him and Ned jumped when the phone let out a series of long buzzes, and when the contact photo of chicken wings took up the screen along with a green answer button and a red decline button, he tapped the green button and held it up to his ear.

"H-Hello?"

"_Ferret, hey._" Ms. Domino's voice rang in his ear along with the sound of distant traffic. He leaned back when Ned leapt up and tried to listen in. "_Got a second to chat?_"

"Uh, sure! What's up?"

_'What's she saying?'_ Ned mouthed. Peter flapped his hand.

"_Wade mentioned once or twice that he's been teaching you how to fight. Which is good, by the way. You should be learning how to fight anyway if you're sticking with your job at the Hellhouse._" A horn beeped in the background. "_I know he's out on a job right now, so I thought I'd lend a hand and bring you by. He was happy about it; I can talk more about it tomorrow. You free?_"

"I have something at eleven, but I should be done around then?"

"_Had a feeling you would. See you then?_"

"Yeah, no problem! Bye, Ms. Domino!"

"_Later, Ferret._"

Peter hung up and turned around to see Ned with his hands over his head and an incredulous look on his face. "What?"

"What do you mean _what_? Are you, are we seriously not going to have any conversation about how you're friends with a real sketch ex-military dude and his probably equally as sketch friend?!" Ned sputtered. "What—What did she say?"

"She wanted to help me train? I think?" Peter shook his head. "I still don't really know what she meant but uh, I'm meeting her tomorrow."

Ned sighed. "Young man, we should talk about the types of friends you're making."

"Oh shut up. Hello? Alien things? More pressing matters of the third kind?"

::

On Sunday, Peter booked it to Sister Margaret's.

Two cars nearly ran him over and he almost tripped over his shoelaces four separate times before he skidded to a stop right in front of the wall Domino was leaning against, one hand in her black jean jacket and the other scrolling through something on her phone.

"Am I-I, la...?" He sucked in a few gulps of air. This is what he got for deciding to run the entire ten-ish miles it took to get to the bar. On the upside, he learned that he could run ten miles in twenty minutes if he still wanted to be going at kinda-human speeds. On the downside, there were literally so many people in New York that most of his energy was spent dodging bodies and lining up his timing with crosswalks and streetlights. Dang, why didn't he just swing over? "Am I late?"

"You're actually right on time," she smiled. Wait, was he really right on time? Not a minute late? Man, his life must be starting to fall apart.

"Super weird, but I'll take it," he sighed. Peter drew in another deep breath before falling into step to her right. Her curly updo was styled into a mohawk and her black timbs looked pretty warm, and it was already different than walking alongside Wade. Wade was always loud and expressive—he found a way to make his mask project more feeling than a silent movie actor and appeared just the right amount of crazy for most of everyone to give him nothing more than a passing glance and a step or two of extra space on the sidewalk. With Ms. Domino, not a single person they passed gave them the time of day, and it made him wonder how many of them knew just how many mercenaries they brushed shoulders with on a day to day basis. "Also, hi. Hope you had a good day so far."

"Not the worst, can't complain. You ready for an exciting day?"

Peter laughed nervously and tugged his jacket sleeves over his hands. "I... still don't know what to expect, honestly. You're going to teach me how to fight too?"

"Nah, like I said, I'm taking you down to the range. It's on the same block as the gym Wade probably takes you to and lots of regulars at the Hellhouse swing by, so don't be surprised if you get recognized," Domino said, pointing down the street. "I think we'll stay for a couple hours, or at least until you can shoot close to the X's I draw on the target—"

His face scrunched up as he caught his breath and mentally ran through her explanation. Ranges, targets, shooting...?

When realization hit, it felt like the time he was slammed into the side of a school bus. But with this one word came to mind—one name—and for a moment, the world around him fizzled out.

_Ben._

"Oh no. No, no, no, no," Peter stammered, swinging around so that he stood in Domino's way. They stopped at the far edge of the sidewalk, near one of the alleys and out of commuters' ways. "I don't do guns, sorry. Like, yeah, I'll help Mr. Weasel stock and inventory with all the shipments and stuff, but I draw the line at using them. No thank you, no sirree, but sorry. I can't. Won't."

Well, Domino _did _feel a little bad hearing his refusal. Ferret was no older than twenty and even if no one else at the Hellhouse knew his real name or age, he never tried to hide his looks or change the way he talked. Baby-faced. Awkward. Thought Beetlejuice was an old movie. He would've been the best kind of fresh meat the Hellhouse would have run out if he wasn't so damn friendly to everyone he met. And not to mention that Wade deigned him the title of 'taco buddy' and that Weasel practically wrote 'off-limits' on the kid's forehead.

And, yeah, Domino liked him too, she wasn't going to lie. Ferret was respectful, never forgot her order, kept a good sense of humor, and took to Sister Margaret's as easily as the rest of them.

(Sometimes that last fact never made much sense to her, but there had to be a reason he'd been able to hold the job for months without cutting his losses.)

"I get it." She stuffed both hands in her outer jacket. "Guns aren't for anyone, but someone in your position doesn't get a say in that."

"My position?" he parroted. "Wh—What do you mean? You know I'm just a dish boy! And sometimes waiter. And Dead Pool board changer. And the guy who knows how to use all the tools in the tool box."

"And also someone who works around mercs on the daily and just happens to be the only other person that has full access to records, receipts, and the Gold Card machine," Domino countered. Peter winced and rubbed the back of his neck. "You're not the dish boy, you're Weasel's assistant, and that means you get both the good shit _and _bad shit that comes with it."

He blinked rapidly. "Good stuff like getting fr-free food on my breaks?"

"Good shit like having a certain level of immunity in the East Coast," she noted dryly, watching the teen's face go pale. "Suppliers, brokers, dispatchers—people like that are neutral grounds with loyal regulars that'll kill anyone who puts hits out on their heads." She sighed, planting her hands on her hips. Of course. "I can't believe Weasel didn't tell you any of this."

"Maybe it was im-implied," he squeaked. "He's—I—Oh man. People really think I'm Mr. Weasel's assistant?!"

"You think someone who literally operates on caffeine, alcohol, and paranoia just lets any random kid handle the merchandise and write up job reports? As far as anyone's concerned, the fact that you survived this long means you're either important, indispensable, or both, and that's a dangerous place to be in."

"But I..." He dropped his face into his hands— "_I just wanted a job that paid well._"

And now she felt worse.

One look at Ferret and it was obvious that he was just a normal kid. And even by some weird stroke of fate that he wasn't normal, that didn't change the fact that he was still a _kid_. Weasel hadn't taken up the mantle at his bar until his early twenties, Wade had an extensive military history prior to his mercenary job, and her status as a mutant had landed her in that fucking orphanage. But Ferret? Sometimes he did his homework on his breaks and wore shirts with math puns and Star Wars characters.

How could she, in good conscience, just sit around and let that innocent kid get caught up in something way bigger than him?

Domino set a hand on his shoulder and shook him gently. "Listen, Ferret. Maybe you didn't sign up for this whole shebang, but you're in it for the long run and when it comes down to it, you're going to want to be the one behind the gun instead of in front of it."

Peter slid his hands down his face and inhaled. Why didn't he think this was coming after all those weeks of Mr. Weasel teaching him how to disassemble and reassemble guns to make sure they had all their parts in working order, conduct maintenance, and scan for anything like planted mics or cameras? Since then, Spider-Man had never been more efficient in unloading guns and separating slides from their barrels.

But to actually shoot them? Spider-Man would never shoot anyone.

_Peter Parker_ would never shoot anyone.

"I... I don't..."

"I'm not telling you to learn fancy tricks or to start keeping a gun on you every second you're working your shift," she told him quietly. "I wanted you to be able to use the guns I know Weasel has taped under the bar so you get less of a chance to end up dead."

"But you—you said I had immunity, right? At least here on the East Coast?"

It was a weak excuse at best, and he wasn't dumb enough to not know how things like this worked. _Immunity _didn't mean _invincibility_, and just because he was sort of safe in New York didn't mean he was safe from the mercs and their associates from everywhere else on the globe.

Killing people was an international business. But who knew, right?

Domino smiled, pityingly, and Peter tried not to slump his shoulders. "The bad shit? Your position gives you connections that can make or break you. The world's not that big of a place for people like us and if there's ever gonna be a target on your back, you have to be ready." She patted his back. "It'll be better if you learn now. Be prepared. But if you want out before you get sucked in completely, I know Weasel and I can pull some strings before you get in so deep you can't get out."

She looked him right in the eye. The intensity made him look away.

"So," she prompted. "What'll it be?"

Choices.

Somehow, Peter always found himself making impossible ones.

It probably started with Ben and the mugger and when his powers made him feel strong, powerful, arrogant. His body made the choice for him that day: to freeze and lock up, to force his eyes to follow the blood spray that erupted from his uncle when he was shot at that bodega. Peter unwittingly made that choice to be useless and watch Ben _die_.

His enhanced hearing forced him to listen to May crying all alone for the months that followed.

Maybe the next choice had been to keep going out in the first rendition of his suit. Night after night it was metal bats to his ribcage and crowbars to his knees, and he would sneak back into his room in the early mornings hiding cuts and bruises and learned to sew his own stab wounds, curled up in the bathtub as he bit down on a dish towel to stop himself from crying out too loud. That was also when he started funneling his savings into more rubbing alcohol, more bandages, more thread from closest CVS.

(_Don't get hit in the face, _he would unconsciously chant. _Not the face. Not the face. Don't let May see. Don't make May cry_.)

The most recent of those choices had landed him in deeper water and almost had him drowned. He was told not to go after Adrian Toomes, not to go poking around Adrian Toomes, not to even _look _at Adrian Toomes. And then what did he do? He got crushed under a building that no one could save him from and crashed a plane surrounded by fire, fire, fire and the brain-numbing shrieks of metal wings.

He shouldn't be surprised he ended up in a place like Sister Margaret's.

Whenever he made his choices, he never picked the easy ones.

"... I'll go," Peter said, and the words were tired on his lips. "But I'm serious okay, Ms. Domino? I'll practice if I really need to but I'm not going to shoot anyone, not now, not ever."

They started walking down the sidewalk again, a small smile on Domino's face and an unreadable look in her eyes. "Then let's hope it doesn't come down to that anytime soon."

::

Domino was thoroughly stunned.

When they reached the range, a building with no sign, barred windows, and the glass door slathered in all sorts of taped papers and ads. A Sister Margaret's regular named June had been there to greet them; she was middle-aged, hid serrated knives in the stilettos of her heels, and always brought banana bread down to the bar whenever she made too much.

June greeted them with a friendly grin and pointed them to a private range with a single lane but double the space, perfect for their use and had all the appointments on it cancelled for the day, lucky for them.

Domino was going to use today to start Ferret off easy. They would stick to handguns like double-action revolvers and semi-automatics, and while her preferred poisons were her twin SMGs, she always carried around her trusty Tisas Zigana. After earlier, she didn't think the kid would grow to have any gun preferences, and she made a note to talk to Weasel about his aversion to shooting.

So when they actually got down to target practice after she hammered basic gun safety into him until he could recite it back to her word for word, and she expected him to be just like any green-nose. Shit aim, stiff posture, clammy hands...

Strangely, Ferret was none of those.

Right off the bat, he'd become her favorite student despite being the only student she'd had. He paid attention, asked lots of questions, and never pretended to know something when he so clearly didn't. And maybe there was a bit of an excess in the questions aspect, especially when they got to the part about safety and he had a minor freak out about actually taking aim and pulling the trigger, but all things considered he handled it like any other nervous teenager would've.

The first twenty or so rounds, he squeaked a 'sorry' when he missed his targets and Domino tried her best not to discourage him with her chuckles.

But after that, she fell into a daze when the gun started to look like it was a perfect fit in his hands.

And when they left the range three hours later, Domino had barely gotten over her shock.

"You're telling me you've never shot a gun before? Ever?" she balked. "Sure you used up your whole first mag trying to figure that out, but after you got damn near close to every 'X' I marked up. Hell, you even shot a bullseye _at least_ five times."

Ferret's cheeks flushed pink as his shoulders hunched up over his ears. "Aw come on, Ms. Domino. It's probably just beginner's luck."

"Bullshit. Don't sell yourself short—I call it as I see it, and you've got talent." She nudged him with her elbow until he cracked a smile. "After we get in a few more practices, I'll start bringing you to those carnival shooting galleries. You know the ones with the ducks?"

Ferret brightened. "Do mercs go to a lot of carnivals?"

"Like the ones with creepy clowns, mirror mazes, and grimy port-a-potties? All the time. We've got the ring-toss locked down." Ferret laughed, listening eagerly. "But I once had a job that sent me to Brazil, smack-dab in the middle of the Rio Carnival."

"That's awesome! Was it worth all the hype? Were there a ton of people? I heard it was like college Spring Break except there's like, a billion more people and a parade that's supposed to rock your socks off. Oh! What about the beach? Did you go to the beach?"

"Better. I went scuba-diving at Copacabana and accidentally blew up a cocaine transport."

He gasped, his eyes going starry as he bounced on his heels as they waited at a crosswalk. "That's. So. _Cool_."

Ferret's an easy to kid to please, and an even easier kid to hang around. She didn't have a lot of experience with kids outside the Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation, but she knew a lot of them didn't turn out like him. She couldn't even remember the last time she met someone in the business who was cheerful, polite, and sane, yet Ferret was all three while somehow managing as Weasel's assistant.

And that wasn't even mentioning his age. Christ, how old was he, really?

"You hungry?" she asked. "I'm in the mood for a good burger and I know a great place in Queens. My treat."

"Wh—Really?"

"Yeah, gotta celebrate a successful first practice day—"

"Peter?" a new voice cut in.

Ferret stopped in his tracks. All the color drained out his skin in a second and his eyes were wider than she'd ever seen them; for a moment she thought he'd honestly been turned into a statue by an invisible Medusa before he whipped around, holding his hands behind his back and sticking on a strained smile.

"M-May!" he exclaimed. "What are—What are you doing here?"

Domino followed his gaze. A pretty older woman with glasses and a pea coat approached them, clutching a purse at her side as she waved.

"I was getting some late lunch with some of my co-workers when I saw you pass the restaurant. I thought you were at the library to study for a bit." The woman looked at Domino and held out her hand. "Hi! I'm May, Peter's aunt."

Peter, huh? It fit.

She saw Ferret's—_Peter's_—visible panic from the corner of her eye and donned an easy smile as she took May's hand and shook. "Neena."

"She's, uh, we work together at the pub," Peter interjected. He fiddled with the zipper on his jacket and _of course_ his aunt wouldn't know he got hooked up with one of the shadiest if not _the _shadiest business in the city. It was common sense.

But he could use some work on his lying skills. A little. A smidge.

A lot of smidges.

"I ran into him when he was leaving the library, and I thought I'd take him out for a bite to eat after all that studying," she added, taking pity. "He's a smart kid. A real sharpshooter in his work."

Peter glared at her over his aunt's shoulder and Domino held back her smirk—what happened to him liking puns?

May smiled wider, oblivious. "Isn't he? I know he's still in his sophomore year at his high school—"

All of Domino's humor was wiped out in an _instant_.

"—but I'm glad he's been making friends at work. I've been so worried."

"_May_," Peter whispered, equal parts flustered and mortified. "Uh, um, I don't, uh, want to keep you from your break, so, uh..."

May rolled her eyes and took Peter's face in her hands to pull him in and planted a kiss on his forehead. "Alright, alright, you're trying to shoo away your embarrassing aunt. I can take a hint." She reached up to tousle his hair. "Don't stay out too late, okay?" She looked at Domino again. "And it was so nice to finally meet one of Peter's work friends."

"Nice to meet you too," Domino bid, and she watched as May gave one last wave before heading back towards the restaurant she'd come from.

For a moment, she and Peter stood there in silence. He looked at the ground and she was looking at him because...

Because fuck. She knew he was young, she knew it, there was no way he wasn't, but he was still a fucking _baby_. He wasn't old enough to drink, to vote, to enlist, to do fucking anything, and he was working with Weasel.

_God, he was working with Weasel. _Did Wade know? And if he did, how the hell did Weasel make it out of that conversation without at least six broken bones and a shattered kneecap? Wade or Deadpool, regardless of who the dick decided to show up as, made it abundantly clear that any kid business wasn't his business and he avoided the younger Gold Card clients like the plague.

Then Ferret showed up out of the blue.

And now she had his real name, his age, and the name of a possible legal guardian.

_'What can I say?'_ she thought solemnly. _'My luck's a superpower.'_

But looking at this kid all nervous and scrunched up as they stood right by a busy sidewalk on a busy street, all she could think about was how small he looked.

She sighed and extended her arm. He jerked, brown eyes going from her hand to her face and when he narrowed his eyes suspiciously, and she wondered how she was fooled into thinking he was anything older than fifteen.

"You can drop the 'Ms. Domino' when we're out by ourselves," she said. "Name's Neena Thurman."

With shaking hands, he gripped her's. "P-Peter Parker," he returned. He laughed quietly. "Er, I guess I'm really bad at this identity thing, huh?"

"We can work on it." Neena jerked her head down the street. "Come on. I'm starving and I could really use a well-done burger."

Peter blinked before scurrying after her. "Neena, you're so cool, but _seriously_? Well-done?"

They walked on that crowded street, side by side, in the middle of winter in Queens with the buzz of the busy street drowning them out.


	10. The PeterSuit 3000

Peter shut the front door behind him with the heel of his foot and shucked off his jacket, tossing it onto the arm of the couch as he carded a hand through his hair. Spending the day with Ms. Domin—Neena, oh, wow, it was really Neena now, huh—had been a lot of fun. Less on the gun thing and his identity getting unintentionally outed by May, more on the burgers and stories he got to hear about her travels.

Being a merc sounded pretty cool if he completely ignored the whole point of the job, and he purposefully willed himself to not think about all the dead bodies traded in for stacks of cash.

(It bothered him in the beginning. Being surrounded by people with blood on their hands and guns tucked in their waistbands and spare magazines hidden in the linings of their winter jackets. But then he thought about how New York was just New York, and if he even tried to stop them all there would still be a million other people in a million other cities doing what he tried to stop.

Maybe it was a mistake figuring out that all the killers he knew were still people, too. But that was Peter Parker, not Spider-Man, and that was something Peter Parker could live with.)

He pried off his shoes without untying the laces and pushed them to the side of the doorway right next to May's nice tan heels, just shy of being a tripping hazard. As he shuffled to his room, he snatched a half-full bag of chips from the kitchen counter and popped a chip in his mouth as he pushed through his bedroom door. Maybe he'd take a look at his web shooters to see if they needed any—

"Did you take these photographs?"

"_Holy_—!"

The chips slipped from his grasp and his foot kicked out instinctively, sending them flying to the other side of the room in a rain of crumbs. Loki, watching the aluminum bag land with a crinkle with his hands clasped behind his back, raised a brow.

"Good evening, Peter," he greeted smoothly, a hint of amusement at the corner of his lips. "How was your day?"

"Oh, um, uh, good? How'd you even get in here?"

Loki kept his eyebrow raised.

"Right. Alien God. Dumb question." Peter took one look at the spilled chips on the carpet, thought about it, _really _thought about it, and resigned himself to shoveling them back into the bag. "Sorry, uh, what were you asking about?"

He glanced up, and Loki looked like Loren today. His walnut brown pants donned a faint windowpane pattern and matched the neatly-folded blazer draped across the back of the desk chair. His light pink button up was rolled and cuffed to his elbows with his wine red tie held down by a simple silver tie bar.

Brown hair, brown eyes, brown glasses.

Like this, Peter thought he could see a little bit of himself in his mother.

"The photographs you have posted on your wall." Loki gestured to the prints of sunsets and skylines taken at dizzying, impossible angles—Peter wondered if he could get away with saying he used a drone to snap those shots—and pointed to one in particular that was a clash of oranges and pinks and blues and golds. "Are they yours?"

"Yeah! Sometimes I like to walk around and take pictures with Ben's old camera. Uh, the scratched up Nikon next to all my books." The teen pushed as much of the bigger chips into the bag as he could before he strode over to his desk. He was careful not to think too much about how standing so close to his mother made his stomach feel light. "The model's, like, super old, but I was able to fix it up enough for it to work like brand new."

"Regardless of the apparatus you used, your images are magnificent. Well done."

Warmth shone behind that magic that turned Loki's eyes brown. Peter ducked his head to hide the flush in his cheeks.

"D-Do you take pictures like this on Asgard?"

"Asgard tends to root themselves in traditional art; portrait, sculpture, prose. Photography of this nature is one of mankind's better inventions that Asgardians hadn't the opportunity to take up. A shame, really, that we Gods do not think completely of a more proper preservation of memory." Loki unfurled his crossed arms. "Though... there is one I have kept all this time."

He reached into his blazer pocket and plucked out a slim black wallet, pristine with a small gold symbol shining on the bottom right-most corner. It barely cracked open when pale fingers pulled out a small photo, glossed and slightly worn around the edges. Peter peered down at it.

A baby with chubby cheeks. A gummy smile.

"Is that...?"

"You were six months old." Loki smiled a bit. "There were some nights when you could never manage to fall asleep no matter the sort of Midgardian playthings I had given you or whatever lullabies those compact discs sung. But the one thing that always ended in your enjoyment were the illusions I crafted to tire you out." His thumb ran across the picture. "Snakes were always your favorite."

Peter peeked up through the floppy fringe of his hair. When May talked about _Lora _for that short moment when she gave him the box, he thought it was obvious about the type of person his mother would be. Cold. Aloof. Intense. Maybe not to him, but definitely to everyone else. Even when they first met back at Sister Margaret's he thought Loki had probably once stabbed someone with a stiletto.

But now? With that faraway look he had when looking at that baby photo? Peter didn't see even a little of the God that destroyed New York.

(Or maybe he was just biased.)

"Snakes are pretty cool," Peter admitted quietly. Loki roused himself from wherever his head went to and cleared his throat.

"I would conjure _slettsnok _and _huggorm_—never the real sorts, though the _buorm _was your preference; little grass snakes that would curl around you as you slept." He tucked the photo into its rightful place in his wallet and slid it back into his blazer. "Do you keep any creatures of your own?"

"Nah, I don't know if I have the time to take care of one between school and work and decathlon and stuff. Plus I don't think the apartment allows any pets, even though I'm pretty sure Mr. Koval's got like, fifteen tarantulas in the apartment right above us." Peter stuffed a handful of previously-floor-chips into his mouth, missing the quick scrunch of disgust that flashed across his mother's face. "And when Wade gets back I'll be going to the gym again, and I think I have to fit time in with Neena some days? Oh geez, I forgot about that. I'll make it work. I just need a calendar I won't forget about? I'll make it work. Probably."

Loki tilted his head. "Neena?"

"She's one of Wade's friends."

"Ah, the elusive Wade." A picture had been building in his mind since the first mention of the man, someone loud and brash and violent. Some who, all too curiously, seemed to be a good friend of his child's. "I do hope for the opportunity to meet him."

"That should be fine since you already met Mr. Weasel, but, uh, don't mention this to May? Please?" Peter's smile turned sheepish, even a tad guilty. "She thinks I work at a pub and would freak if she found out I'm actually working at an Amazon for mercs."

With a mental note to look up Amazon later, Loki leaned forward. "Are you admitting to deceiving your aunt to participate in illicit affairs in a tavern where blood spilled onto your slacks is commonplace and where others come in to request killers that you, my young _bairn_, help assign to them?"

Peter blinked, trying to chew his chips as quietly as possible. Well, when it was put like _that_, "... yes?"

Loki grinned, amusement bright around his eyes. "Delightful." He raised a hand to place on one of Peter's shoulders, but paused for a moment before drawing it back and clasping it with the other behind his hip. "No need to delve in your worries. May will hear nothing from me."

"Do you, uh, do you want to meet up with May? You probably haven't seen her since, y'know..."

"Soon, perhaps." Loki looked back at the pictures tacked up on the wall. "But not now."

And Peter got that. Ever since May brought up the box and 'Lora Olstad' and how Mary had never been his biological mother all this time, they hadn't talked about it much. He wore the necklace every day and kept the box on the corner of his desk, and whenever May thought he wasn't looking he'd watch her stare at him, or the box, or both, and he knew that they'd have to bring it up again some day.

But he remembered how she got about Spider-Man and even if she told him that she'd come to peace with her spider kid, he also knew that on the nights he swung around the skylines were the nights she spent pressed up against the windows waiting for him to come home alive.

Now he was half a space alien whose mother used to be Earth's Most Wanted until their death was officially declared, except the death part wasn't true, and he worked at a mercenary dispatch and was apparently so deep in the mac and cheese that he had _contract immunity_ on the _East Coast._

There was no way in _heck _she'd be okay with any of this.

Loki hummed suddenly. "Ah, yes. I had another reason for my appearance besides checking on your well being." Out of his pressed pants pocket he took out a case-less smartphone. Not a StarkPhone. Yeah, Peter should've expected that. "Simply an exchange of a series of numbers, correct? Which will allow an open channel of communication between us?"

"Yup, pretty much. Here, I'll send a text to my number."

As Peter swiped open the phone and reminded himself to teach his mother about at least password security, he thought about installing all those programs and fixes he and Ned had worked into his own phone. He figured Loki would appreciate it too considering, well, he was still a criminal even if everyone else thought he was dead. Best to keep him off all potential lists and tell him about burners if things got serious.

"It'll take a week or something, but I can add a few bugs onto your phone. It'll notify you of any potential trackers, let you know if phone calls are being recorded, maintain a fake but believable GPS trail if necessary, and send out alerts to designated contacts if you put in a certain code in the keypad," he said, handing the phone back after feeling a short buzz in his back pocket. "And I got a list of prank numbers I can put in your contacts, so that's cool."

Loki observed the phone with a sort of quiet consideration. He couldn't have completely understood all that his son had just said, but after a beat he met those bright eyes and smiled. "_Brilliant_."

(He hoped Peter knew he wasn't talking about the phones.)

::

"Belarus. _Byelorussa_. _Belorussia_. Bordered by Russia and Ukraine and Lithuania and Latvia with the darned cutest capital of Minsk, population one million—"

"Fucking alright, you want to bone Belarus 'til you snap the headboard, I GET IT." Weasel slammed down the glass he was wiping. "I haven't had a fucking geography class since tenth grade and I'd like to keep it that way."

"Oh sure, just because you got a degree in alcohol content—"

"It was a doctorate in computer science with a minor in software engineering, jerkoff—"

"—you think you're too good to hear about Belarus? _Belarus_? That BITCH is CUTE you four-eyed manufacture error of a knock-off Ken doll!"

"What the hell does that even mean?!"

"Maybe she's born with it, Maybelline, but you'll never pull your honeyed locks over my eyes." Wade lifted his glass and threw it back in one gulp, Deadpool mask unpeeled over the bottom half of his face, before leaning over the counter and dropping his voice to whisper, pointing to the seat next to him in a way that was _definitely _subtle. "And be nice. Between you and me, I'm still tryna convince Josephine over here that she's in good hands."

"Good hands? I once watched you fish days old steak out of a dumpster, say that it was just like Rotten Flesh in Minecraft where the only possible consequence was 80% chance of hunger and losing a couple of hearts, then eat the whole thing."

"So?"

"You were late to a rendezvous point because you were organizing the chunks of your puke in the gutter."

"Wease, be honest. If I had hair like yours, would you have held it back for me?"

"Fuck off."

Weasel tosses the drying rag across one of his shoulders as he stores the glasses, passing the small clock under the bar that read 6:32 PM. It was Christmas Eve with still about an hour and a half until opening, and he hoped all the extra plates and glasses he stocked up would be enough to replenish all the broken ones that would come when one of these assholes would inevitably waltz in dangling a mistletoe.

Honestly, he was surprised that Wade wasn't the asshole that had it planned.

"What, and do it four years in a row?" the asshole in question huffed. "Please. I have _class_."

"A Class A medical condition."

"Maybe so." The white eyes of the red mask narrowed. "But the only condition I'm suffering right now is HUNGER and I'm seven whole noodles away from going to the fucking falafel truck down the street—"

Peter's voice filtered out from the kitchen mixed in with the faint sounds of frying oil and clanging pans. "If you can survive the flight from Belarus to New York, you can wait another few minutes for me to finish!"

"Finish _what_?"

"It's a surprise!"

Wade thumped his head onto the bar. "UggggggggggGGGHHHHHHHHHHH."

"Kid's been here for over a couple hours now. Rushed straight into the kitchen with an armful of grocery bags, so whatever he's been doing he should be done soon," Weasel shrugged. "Hey, Boy-Wonder! Why the hell're you coming in on Christmas Eve, anyway? I could've cleared you 'til you got back to school."

"Yeah, but I don't really have anything going on. My Aunt picked up a lot of the shifts people are giving up for the holidays and Spider-Man goes out in the day. Since I've already finished all my homework for winter break, I thought I'd help out."

"No friends to hang out with?" Wade piped up, his forehead still smooshed against the polished wood.

"I _am _hanging outwith friends!"

"Friends your age, Gerber Baby."

"Ned's in the Philippines and MJ's in Florida."

"What about the Katie McGrath look-a-like?" Weasel asked as he was elbow deep in the unopened bottles of liquor to restock his shelves. Wade mouthed_ Katie McGrath look-a-like_ with two parts confusion and three parts sparkling interest before his friend waved him off in a motion for 'later'.

"She said she's walking me home after my shift today." Peter backed up through the swinging white doors of the kitchen and spun on his heel to face them. There were a few more stains on his apron and a tray in his hands that held the plates he slid down the bar.

Weasel stared dumbly at his plate of potato wedges and a really good looking chicken fried steak swimming in gravy. Wade was equally as quiet, goggling down at his own plate of a three chimichanga stack smothered in sour cream and beans.

"I didn't know what to get you guys for Christmas, so I hope it was okay that I made your guys' favorite food?" Peter piped up. His shoulders hunched when he didn't get a reply. "Um—"

Then, Wade straight up _wailed_.

"_This is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me!_" He shoveled a bite into his mouth with his gloved hands instead of using the fork that was literally _right there_ and sobbed even harder. "It's so good. So—" _sniff_— "good."

"What the hell is this?" Weasel mumbled. His hand gripped his chest like he was having a heart attack. "Am I feeling things? Oh god, I'm feeling things. It's not stopping. What the fuck? Wade—Wade, shoot me!"

Wade didn't shoot him. Instead, he didn't stop crying or eating and looked exactly like that meme of that kid on a cooking show flipping something with his tongs.

Peter grinned with what he took as success, or as much of a success as he was going to get, and thought about bringing down a new box of napkins from the store room because when Wade cries, he _cries_—tears and snot flying like the bullets from Space Invaders.

He glanced at the seat next to Wade and backtracked into the kitchen. "Oh yeah!" He popped back out in tandem with the outward swing of the door and presented a small bowl of cut grapes with a flourish. "How could I almost forget the lovely Josephine?"

Josephine the Blue Orpington Chicken Stolen From Belarus As A Souvenir clucked and pecked at her meal.

Wade drew in a huge sniffle as he stood up and whisked Peter in a great big bear hug, crying into the teen's shoulder and swinging him side to side.

"You're an angel," the merc sobbed, "like those tree ornaments when they hold their dumb little trumpets and—what the god-given _fuck _happened to your face?"

Three whole potato wedges in his mouth, Weasel raised his head.

When Wade finally set the kid down and he could get a good look, he first spotted the enormous bruise along one of Peter's cheekbones, splotches of angry reds and wine purples rudely decorating his skin. A cut hid on the side of his head, scabbed over and half-hidden by a curl of brown hair, and another bruise drew its unflattering yellow-green mass across his jawline. Several other faded lines dotted his face, more than likely fixed up by his enhanced healing, but the scrape across his nose and specks of dried blood on his forehead were clearly visible.

Peter shrugged as if his face didn't look like a messed-up church mosaic. "Just ran into something I wasn't supposed to. One of the dudes had muscles the size of my head and had a mean crowbar." He waved it off. "But it's healing! By noon tomorrow, my cheekbone should be just a little brown."

Weasel chewed and swallowed his ridiculously delicious potatoes. "You know this is fucked up, right?" He pointed with his fork. "If I were a good boss, I would say that you should at least be an adult to start getting crowbars to the face. But I'm not, so, you got the bad guy?"

"Heck yeah!"

"Huh. Hell of a Christmas gift, I guess. Good job."

Wade had just about sucked down his second chimichanga before pointing towards the kitchen. "Petey, get an ice pack or something. That face isn't a good look."

"But I'll heal—"

"Ice, child! Chop chop! Chip chop! Clip clop!"

Peter rolled his eyes, but he dragged himself back into the kitchen.

For the moment the kid—just a fucking _kid_—rifled through the freezers for ice that wasn't gross or smelled like meat, Weasel and Wade met each other's eyes. Uncharacteristically quiet, uncharacteristically serious.

_Peter Parker. Some kid, wasn't he?_

Wade inhaled the rest of his food before licking the plate clean and crouched down to dig through the duffel at his feet. The package he took out had been secured with about three rolls of duct tape and top-tier pizza wrapping, and when he dropped it on the bar, it landed with nothing more than a soft thud. Mostly from the weight of the duct tape.

He looked up. "Do you have any ribbons?"

"Do I run a fucking Hallmark?"

"I was just _asking_. Maybe you've got a couple bows hidden in a stash like the squirrely motherfucker you are—"

Peter slipped back into the main room holding a ziploc bag of ice chunks up to his cheekbone and plopped down on the stool at Wade's unoccupied side. He set down a stack of quesadillas in front of him, something he knew he could only get away with before Ms. Granny came in and demanded he eat something with more 'substance' to start the night.

"What do you need ribbons for?" he asked.

"For your Christmas gift."

"For my—huh?"

The pizza package was dropped on his lap and nearly slid off if he hadn't caught it between his knees. Peter forced down his bite of quesadilla and put down his ice bag. "You... You got me a gift?"

"You think I'd let my favorite taco buddy off without a gift from yours truly, the Pooliest?" Wade scoffed. He flipped his nonexistent hair over his shoulder. "Blasphemy! It's like saying Belarus isn't bordered by Russia and Ukraine and Poland and Lithuania—"

Weasel balled up his towel and chucked it right in the center of the merc's face. "The gift's from the both of us, by the way. He got it made, I chipped in and made sure it was Ferret-appropriate."

"I wouldn't have gotten anything Ferret-inappropriate!"

"Uhuh. Yeah. Sure."

But Peter only lent half an ear to the banter as he gently took the box in his hands and brought it closer, his lips quirked up at the realistic pepperonis.

Christmases with Ben and May had always been small. Not that he minded—they were warm and cozy and they always managed to put up a small plastic tree and strung up rainbow-colored lights all over the living room. He was never the kid with piles of presents to open Christmas morning, but rather the kid who got a present from Ben and May each and loved whatever they got him, whether it was that cool Star Wars sweater he'd seen at the comics store or a new Lego set he and Ned would drool over when they got the chance.

When he got a little older, he and Ned started to exchange gifts too.

When he was a little older than that and Ben passed, May and Ned were the only ones he'd get presents from and give presents to, and that was just how it was.

"—pen it!"

Peter shook his head. "Sorry, what?"

"You should open your gift!" Wade repeated. Josephine clucked and hopped onto the bar to inspect the shiny wood, sending Weasel skittering back a few steps. "Better do it before opening too, 'cause I think you'll agree that it's a big no-no to show the rest of Sister Margaret's assholes."

"Why the fuck did you phrase it like that," Weasel muttered as he eyed the chicken distrustfully.

Peter, always bright-eyed and always full of energy, could barely mask his excitement as he popped off the scotch tape at the weirdly neat folds and slid the box out of the wrapping paper. His boss was halfway to reaching for the jack knife he kept in his front pocket to help cut away the layers of duct tape surrounding the box, but he was stopped short as he watched the teen's fingers dig into the material and tear it away.

"Jesus fuck," Weasel gaped. "I know you're the mini-Hulk, but goddamn."

Beneath the gray tape was an oddly fancy black box, like one of those suit boxes from those high end stores.

A suit box. That wasn't quite wrong, actually.

Because when Peter took off the top of the box, his eyes grew impossibly wide.

It was a Spider-Man suit.

The material wasn't as thick or as rough as the Deadpool suit, less kevlar-ish and more suited to dodging and flexibility than Wade's favorite straight-into-the-salsa tactics, and was a solid bahama blue—dark enough to blend in with the night, bright enough to glare like a warning if hit with headlights or flashlights. The StarkSuit was worth millions, so it was no stretch of the imagination that the threads woven into it was made with some off-market fabric that was both knife and scratch resistant. This suit, this _new _suit, made up for its vulnerabilities with what had to be military-grade black padding that covered the upper biceps, elbows, forearms, backs of the hand, knuckles, knees, calves.

Then, there was the spider. Its cephalothorax started at his Adam's apple and its abdomen ended at the middle of his chest. The bottom set of legs ran down the sides of the suits' torso and ended just at the hips; the set of legs just above that ran along the collar bone down the outside of the arms, ending at the elbow pads. The top two sets of legs, however, reached around the neck and crawled down the back just past where the shoulder blades would sit.

A deep, carmine red spider.

"When we were talking the first time I took you by the gym, it got me thinking about that suit you always wear," Wade started up. "The StarkSuit must be pretty cool being Starkified and all that, but you shouldn't feel uncomfortable, so I went ahead and called up some peeps I knew—don't worry, it was totally off record, no questions asked at risk of losing their dangly bits—and got you this suit! Remember when Wease asked you to come in to get measured 'cause another merc your size needed a fitting? Yeah, so that was a lie."

"I had to bribe Wade with three bags of tacos to get him to admit what the hell I needed to do that for," Weasel deadpanned.

"Apparently 'for a good cause' isn't an explanation, which is bullshit because it is, but he should've believed me when I went ahead and got Super-Boy the best. Blue in HEX #006090, red in HEX #AE0020, I went on Google and everything! It's all yours to customize to what your little nerd heart desires—the PeterSuit 3000! Whattya' think?"

Peter tugged out the mask at the bottom of the box and took it into his hands. It was the same blue as the rest of the suit and the lenses were white, carmine red lining the edges.

It looked different from the StarkSuit. It felt different from the StarkSuit.

_It wasn't the StarkSuit._

Tears pricked the corner of his eyes.

"... Oh my god he's crying. He's crying. I made him _cry_." Wade grabbed Weasel's shirt and hauled him forward until they were nose to nose, the latter sputtering and the former failing to not panic. "I DIDN'T WANT TO MAKE HIM CRY."

"Let me fucking go—!"

"HE HATES IT!"

"Fucking—WADE—"

"Thank you," Peter sniffed. The commotion stilled as all the attention swiveled over to him and his tear-streaked face. He wiped at his eyes with the sleeves of his hoodie, careful not to brush against the ugly bruises that throbbed as they healed.

When he admitted his feelings to Wade about the StarkSuit, guilt came for him later that night. He had no right to complain, did he? Mr. Stark spent millions on a suit just for him and at first, it was great. More than great. Awesomely amazing! It was like he was at the top of the world swinging above the streets in the suit made by his life-long hero. But since the ferry incident and since the realization that the suit wasn't truly _his_, every single time he put it on it felt like it didn't belong.

Millions of dollars spent on just another teenager in Queens.

Don't get him wrong, he wasn't ungrateful! It had been a major upgrade to the old sweats he tried to pass off as a first suit. With the new safety measures, features, his very own AI and the friend he made in Karen... It was incredible.

But it was handed to him on a silver platter with things like the _Baby Monitor Protocol_ embedded in the functions.

Maybe Mr. Stark would never see him as anything but a kid who could pick up entire cars, but Wade and Mr. Weasel...

He looked back at the new suit—the PeterSuit 3000, he thought with a watery chuckle, and tried not to get overwhelmed with tears.

"I love it," he chokes out. "I love it so much."

Peter wrapped his arms around Wade and buried his face into his bicep. And, faintly, he felt the hesitant, careful pats against his back as he held on.

::

"Hey, Happy. I know it's late, or early, but Merry Christmas!"

A quick flash of Peter's watch told him it was only a few minutes after 2:30 AM closing and his hearing granted him the knowledge that pretty much all of the patrons had cleared out for the night save for Wade and Mr. Weasel. Neena had stopped by around midnight just to say hi before heading out for a job that would keep her out of the city for a couple weeks. Before she left, though, he'd been able to give her a gift of homemade oatmeal raisin cookies and a to-go box of extra-charred chicken wings.

She cried only a little bit, then punched out the guy who called her out on it.

"Sorry if I haven't called in a while. I know I've been kind of off and on with reports after Spider-Manning but uh, I guess if it's in the day there's a better chance to catch me on Twitter or something like that. Do you have a Twitter?"

He convinced Ms. Granny to take an early off, especially since it was Christmas and she'd been telling him how her and her sister were going to spend it getting drunk and watching old sitcom reruns. So at around one when she was putting on her heavy coat, he gave her the gifts he'd hid on the highest shelf she couldn't reach: the softest throw blanket he could find and a 3-in-1 taser/switchblade/flashlight.

She laughed, planted a huge kiss on his cheek, and made him promise to get home safe.

"Anyway, I was thinking of stopping by the Tower one of these days? I just—I wanted to bake some things for you guys for Christmas? I get it if you guys are super busy this week with New Years coming up and any events you and Mr. Stark do, but, um, if you're totally okay with getting apple pie or fudge or something, let me know!"

Peter untied his apron with the hand that wasn't holding the phone and hung it on the hooks by the rear exit. In the main room he heard the front door open and close, the sound of heels on wood and Wade noisily turning his attention towards the newcomer.

Politely tuning out the ensuing conversation, he ran a last check of the kitchen to make sure all the stove burners were off, the oven was cold, the fryers weren't bubbling, the fridges were shut, and all the dishes were washed, dried, and put away.

No blood stains, no food stains, no problem.

Peter nodded to himself and pushed through the swinging doors—

"So, no updates really, but—"

—and walked in to see his mom throw Wade across the bar and through the pool table.


End file.
